Bregenz Festival opens with hint of Hollywood glamour

Lake Constance, which borders on Germany, Austria and Switzerland, forms the spectacular backdrop to the annual Bregenz Festival, where a huge open-air stage has been built out on to the lake itself, reports the AFP.

A performance of Puccini's operatic thriller "Tosca" opened this year's festival, the 63rd edition, on Wednesday evening.

Austria's political elite -- President Heinz Fischer and Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer -- were among the 7,000 spectators armed with blankets and cushions against the cold wind.

But the proceedings had even looked set to take on a touch of Hollywood glamour, too, after the so-called "Seebuehne" or stage-on-the-lake was used during filming of the new James Bond film "Quantum of Solace" earlier this year.

Rumour had it that 007 himself, British film actor Daniel Craig, was to have been in the opening night audience, but he failed to make an appearance in the end.

Nevertheless, apart from the wind, the weather played along and "Tosca" began just as the sun was setting, in dramatic red and purple, over Lake Constance.

The stage, dominated throughout by a huge eye, could arguably be one of the most spectacular "Tosca" sets ever made, complete with laser beams, state-of-the-art video projections and a wondrous stage technology that allows the gigantic 200-tonne eye and towering backdrop to slide and glide around silently and effortlessly.

There are some breath-taking moments, as when Cavaradossi, shot by a firing squad, plummets tens of metres into the waters of Lake Constance itself.

Tosca, too, sings the final act vertiginously atop the iris of the eye: one slip and the heroine could easily have been sent tumbling, too.

The problem with an open-air venue, and particularly one as spectacular as this, was that voices need to be amplified. Orchestra and conductor are hidden away in the security and warmth of the nearby Festspielhaus theatre, with their contribution piped into the stage's vast sound system, rendering impossible the interaction that is so vital to good opera performance.

In some of the more intimate moments, the orchestra -- the otherwise excellent Vienna Symphony Orchestra -- sounded tinny, while the singers' voices were miked too loudly.

American soprano, Catherine Naglestad, was a vocally impressive Tosca, particularly in her famous aria "Vissi d'arte." Her compatriot Andrew Richards was adequate as Cavaradossi, but clearly had difficulty higher up in the register.

Austrian bass-baritone Claudio Otelli was visually dashing as the evil Scarpia, but less interesting vocally.

It was only really US bass Sebastien Soules in the small role of Angelotti who made you sit up and want to hear more.

German maestro Ulf Schirmer conducted without much subtlety, but in a production such as this, it is the stage and the dramatic setting of Lake Constance itself that are the stars of the show, anyway.

Musically, the Bregenz Festival is set to become much more interesting on Thursday night with the premiere of the rarely-performed 12-tone opera "Karl V" by Austrian composer Ernst Krenek (1900-1991).

Labelled by Krenek himself -- whose music was blacklisted by the Nazis and who emigrated to the United States in 1938 -- as a "theatre piece with music", "Karl V" tells the life story of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, in the form of flashbacks. On his deathbed, the emperor makes his confession to a young monk, explaining his actions, his motives in an attempt to obtain absolution.

Directed by German director and actor Uwe Eric Laufenberg, the new production will be staged indoors in Bregenz's Festspielhaus theatre.

It will star German baritone Dietrich Henschel in the title role with German conductor Lothar Koenigs in the pit.

The Bregenz Festival runs until August 23.

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