Salzburger Zeitung 2013 - Post Script

 Dateline:  July 20, 2013: 

A few final comments on this year and next years' Festivals and then probably another of those prolonged silences I've now become known for.

As with any festival there are bound to be highs and lows - not always the fault of the artists or the artistic director doing the programming.  What often looks good on paper falls flat when realized.  Of the seven events we took in a this year's Pfingstfestspeil I can honestly say the the highs set the bar at such a level that in many other venues the lows would have been considered highs.

The highlights?  Do you have to ask?  It will be a long time before I see or hear that Norma equalled and the Gubaidulina-Shostakovich double bill made me an emotional wreck. The low?  I'm afraid the Haydn Seven Last Words left me wishing I had spent the afternoon sipping Aperol Spritz on the terrace of the Cafe Bazar.  That's how high the bar was this year.  That Bartoli girl knows how to put on a damn fine festival.

On the Sunday evening as we sat enjoying a nightcap in the Sketch Bar our friend Dr. M. showed us the prospectus for 2014.  It came as a bit of a surprise and a lively discussion broke out about the merits of returning or not.  Rossinissimo! trumpeted the title - and in her preface La Ceci waxed enthusiastic over the beloved son of Pesaro.  And frankly who better?  Much of her early reputation was built on her appearances in Il Barbiere and Cenerentola and recently she has appeared in Conte Ory and Otello.   Now as much as I love Rossini when I couple his name with Festival I think of our August trips to Pesaro.  Did I really want to come back to Salzburg in June for what I could see in August on the sun soaked shores of the Adriatic?

Well Cenerentola is my favourite Rossini opera and I had never seen La Ceci sing Angelina; Otello is a work I've been fascinated by since I read an article in Opera News more than 50 years ago and she has put together an interesting cast (always a challenge when you need three - not the Three - tenors).   As she showed this year, she may be the artistic director and the nominal star but she surrounds herself with performers of equal star quality.  So yes we get La Ceci in Cenerentola and Otello but the supporting casts include Javier Camarena, Nichola Alaimo, John Osborn and Barry Banks.  But the programme bracketed by the two operas is even more fascinating.  Franco Fagioli singing music of Meyerbeer and Rossini; David Fray playing Rossini, Liszt, Mozart and Bach; Antonio Pappano exploring the religious Rossini - first the Stabat Mater with his Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Krassimira Stoyanova, Elina Garanca, Piotr Beczala and Erwin Schrott on the Sunday morning then the Petite Messe Solennelle with Eva Mei, Vesselina Kasarova, Lawrence Brownlee and Michele Pertusi in the afternoon; Joyce DiDonato giving us Venetian songs by a parcel of composer; and strangest of all A Grand Rossini Gala and dinner.

That gala is the oddest item of the programme - unless you count Il Barbiere by the Salzburg Marionette Theatre, though I like to think of that as inspired - with a parade of singers that is honestly a little frightening.  Fine Bartoli, Kasarova, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, Camerena and Michele Pertusi are remarkable in the current crop of Rossini singers; however,  as much as I love and revere them I am honestly trying to think what Agnes Baltsa, Teresa Berganza, Monstserrat Caballe, Jose Carreras, Leo Nucci and Ruggero Raimondi can possible sing at this stage of their lives.  Sometimes it is best to be left with your treasured memories. 

As tempting as the programme looked, and Christian, our host at the Bristol, kept pointing up all the positives, we  decided that we'd go elsewhere for our musical pleasure in 2014.  Our Festival friend Dr M firmly avowed the same.  Just before leaving for Füssen on Tuesday morning we ran into the good Doctor who admitted to having just returned from the box office and they would mail his tickets to him later in the week.

We chortled at his lack of resolve and headed out to the train station.  We would never be so weak-willed.

July 20 - Petrarch, Italian scholar and poet is born in Arezzo (d. 1374)

Monumental Sidd - Sidd and the Several Dwarfs

Sidd is currently off on a Mediterranean Cruise with our friend Josée and our colleague Jean-Louis - being a security conscious type - thought he'd best be equipped just in case:

Given what has been happening on cruise ships lately Jean-Louis felt that Sidd
should be pre-equiped just in case they don't have one his size on board.

Meanwhile as Sidd heads out on his cruise I started going through more pictures of our friend on his jaunt with us to Munich, Salzburg, Füssen and Frankfurt.   One of the common features - well other than food, Sidd seems inordinately fond of food - was the number of monuments that our Sidd wanted to be posed beside.  So starting with a special garden in Salzburg we give you:  Monumental Sidd.

Salzburg - May 22, 2013

My friend David suggested that since Sidd was going to Salzburg for the music festival we should arrange a special performance of Zemlinksy's Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) for his delectation.  We suggested it to him but he rather huffily reminded us that he was a gnome not a dwarf.  After the distinction had been so clearly, and emphatically,  made I was a bit reticent to suggest a visit to the Zwergerlgarten (Dwarf Garden) at Scholss Mirabell.  However Sidd was agreeable and was even willing to have his photo taken with a few of the strange creatures that inhabit the tower-like patch of grass that has been their home since 1928.

On our visit in 2008 I posted photos of all the dwarfs that live in the Zwergerlgarten and a bit of their history.  You might want to take a look and in the meantime here are Sidd and Several Dwarfs.

Though her expression is no perhaps the most welcoming Sidd remembered
that the pomegranates she was offering were a sign of hospitality.

This poor Turkish Lad may have lost his arm in the Siege of Vienna
- or perhaps it was just the elements or a drunken loat after a night
of beer and sausage.

Many of the dwarfs in the garden are wearing clothes that suggest the commedia dell'arte
- perhaps they were members of the Archbishop's theatre company?

This lady - one of only two in the garden - was offering a jug of water (or
maybe wine) and some fruit to go with it.  As we all know Sidd loves his
wine and food so it was a given that he'd hop up to see what she had to offer.

This little woodcutter has always struck me as the saddest in the group.
  The difficulty of his existence is etched in the stone - despite assurances
Sidd was afraid to go near him.

In the early 1800s Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, in a fit of superstitious concern for his wife and unborn child, had the little creatures (there were 28 of them)  “with their goiters and hunchbacks" removed from the Garden.  They were to be destroyed but were only auctioned off - nine remained in the city's possession.   At the moment 15 of them are back in their rightful place - perhaps one day the remaining 13 will be reunited with their fellows.

02 June - 1896: Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his newest invention, the radio.