Appreciate the Confusion

As we sat in San Pietro in Casale having a make-shift lunch earlier today some words of advise my dear friend Stephen sent to me just before we arrived in Italy came to mind:

There are a couple of things that you should be aware of - first, living in Rome is not at all like visiting Rome. It is a Mediterranean country - not at all European. If you put it on a par with Beirut, Damascus or Cairo, you will be OK. Simple things like an ADSL connection - think weeks, months, not days. And the daily shopping is a pain. The Italians put it this way - "the complete confusion is something not to be understood, merely appreciated."

We had left Trieste on the IC9394 direct to Roma at 0749 this morning scheduled into Termini at 1410. First the ineffable TrenItalia booking system had given us seats one behind the other but then we’ve just spent over a week as inseparables so what’s a seat’s width for 6 hours. Well we got as far as Montefone - 20 minutes into the trip - when disaster struck: one of doors on the first car wouldn’t close. After a 45 minute wait we started up again - all systems were go, we were going to be late but the up side was it meant a sizable travel voucher from TrenItalia.




Then just after we left Ferrara the Capo di Treno stopped beside us when his cell rang: between what he said and the reactions of the people around us I was able to piece together the situation. We were making a detour because the line between Bologna and Firenze was blocked. And the detour took us to a siding at San Pietro in Casale where the pleasant gentleman in the dining car told us that they didn’t board hot meals until Bologna but he could put together a mixed cold cut and cheese platter to tide us over. So there we sat eating Chief Express’s best mortadella gazing at waving corn fields somewhere between Ferrara and Bolgona.

What surprised me was my reaction - there’s an often heard phrase here: Boh! Boh can mean anything, its how you say it and the accompanying gestures that count. At that point I found I was saying it with a shrug as: oh well we’ll get there eventually!

Its taken two years but Stephen was right, but then he always was.

Post Script: Just after we had left Firenze I was sitting minding my own business, as it where, in the WC when sudden the train slammed to a halt, pitching me head first towards the washbasin. What the hell next? Well just to add to today’s “confusion” an elderly gentleman in our car thought the emergency brake was the switch to open the door and ... at that point the entire car broke up into hysterical laughter. What the hell else are you going to do?

Post to the Post Script: We ended up arriving almost 4 hours late and the line up for the travel voucher was a going to take another hour - everyone traveling between Firenze and Bologna today had been delayed. But we have a month to claim our refund voucher - which will take us on another trip with TrenItalia!

06 giugno - San Norberto di Prémontré

Trieste - Felines

As with any city here in Italy, Trieste has its stray cats. This little group seem quite content with their lot.

However this feline at Miramare was not happy to have her drinking session interrupted by the clicking of a camera. That is one disdainful look.

05 giugno - San Bonifacio vescovo

Trieste - Heads or Tails

Where ever you look on buildings in the Centro Storico here in Trieste you'll see heads looking down at your from the lintels of doorways or windows.

I'm sure the first one is meant to be Hercules but not so sure about the second one - except that he's guarding the entrance to the Consulate for the Netherlands. I shouldn't have been surprised to see poor old bewildered Carlotta and her easily mislead husband Emperor Maximilian looking down at us from a building just off the main square. They lived in Trieste before heading off to Mexico on the advise of and promise of help from two Emperors and a Pope. He ended up being shot and poor Carlotta went mad and was confined to a palace in Brussels - which would drive anyone mad if they weren't already.


So much for the heads and as for the tails? Well I want someone to tell me where the creator of this World War I war memorial got his models? Cause those are some tails!
Talk about homo-erotic art!

05 giugno - San Bonifacio vescovo

Whitsun 2009 - Monday Morning

My darling OC was right - Giovanni Paisiello is an absolute genius! And that was more than apparent on Monday morning's final concert at the Felsenreitschule. His Missa Defuctorum has a career almost as varied as that of its composer. It was originally written for a performance in memory of members of the Bourbon royal family who had died during the smallpox epidemic that devastated Napoli in 1789. Ten years later, for the funeral of the exiled Pope Pius VI, it was expanded to include new choral work and a Funeral March written at the request of Napoleon earlier that year. This unlikely history has led to it being referred to as "a unique mixture of obsequiousness to the Jacobines and homage to a Pope." It was this 1799 version that Riccardo Muti choose to end this year's Whitsun Festival.

Riccardo Muti conducts the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini, La Stagione Armonica and soloists in Paisiello's Missa Defunctorum.

It is a Mass in the grand style - Muti led four soloists, a double choir of 60 voices with choir soloists, two brass choirs and an expanded Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini. The sound in the Felsenreitschule was remarkable and placement gave the impression of the Mass being sung in a great cathedral.

Pride of performance has to go to La Stagione Armonica under Sergio Balestracci. This remarkable group of singers soared to the heavens one minute and sang in hushed wonder the next. The dynamics of their performance were exceptional as was the work of the soloists from within their ranks. The four major soloists - Beatriz Diaz, Anna Malavasi, Juan Francisco Gatell and Nahuel Di Pierro - made exciting work of the great Dies Irae sequentia. The center piece of the work, it is a remarkable piece of music. Less dramatic than many other settings it has a lyrical almost sorrowful approach to the Day of Wrath - it lacks the power of the great settings but still has considerable emotional depth.

Again this year from our vantage point we could observe Muti at close quarters. It sounds hackneyed but he seems to have an almost sorcerer's control over his performers. Not a movement is wasted - no dancing, bobbing and weaving - and with his left hand he seems almost to pluck the sounds of out the air. And his forces responded to every nuance and details he wanted from this work. As I said this is not one of the great settings of the Mass for the Dead but it is one that when it is directed with such authority and affection demands to be heard.

I have mentioned in all the previous reviews the audience response and this time I was able to capture some of it on video however have not been able to transfer it. So lets just say that the applause was prolonged and heartfelt.

Again, a brilliant conclusion to a festival that this year only seemed to get better with each passing day.

Photographs by Sylvia Lelli - from Salzburg Festival Webside.

04 giugno - San Francesco Caracciolo

This Week's GPV

Just because we are sitting in Trieste and the kids are 642 kms away in Capena doesn't mean I'm not going to post a *Gratuitous Puppy Video this week. Here's Nicky and Nora! They got the run of the house, in the futile hope they would get all that pent up energy out before the car trip.



04 giugno - San Francesco Caracciolo

Mercoledi Musicale

I realize that counter tenors are not to everyone's taste but when Handel's Lascia ch'io pianga is sung this beautifully I just have to post it.

An example of the sweetness of Philippe Jaroussky's singing - and we were so lucky to have heard him live on Sunday.

03 giugno - San Carlo Lwanga

Whitsun 2009 - Sunday Morning

When I was growing up counter tenors were a rarity - Alfred Deller with his early English group was the one often heard and then mostly in twee English hey-nonney-nonney-nymphs-and-shepherds stuff. However in the past 15 years the voice type has become almost ubiquitous to the point that not too long ago William Christie gave a performance of Landi's Sant’Alleso with 13 - count them - 13 counter tenors in various roles.

Of course there are counter tenors and there are counter tenors - I recall a few at the Opera Kameralna in Warsaw who sounded like strangled chickens, but then I’ve heard a few sopranos on recent broadcasts from the Met who sounded the same way - it isn’t restricted to voice type. But putting those aside you have the likes of Andreas Scholl, David Daniels, Brian Azawa, Behjam Mehta, Daniel Taylor and Phillippe Jaroussky.

Last year we heard Scholl, one of my favorites, and this year Salzburg gave us Jaroussky. Of the lot the young French singer has perhaps the sweetest voice and he gave us amble opportunity to enjoy that sweetness Sunday morning.

Laurence Paugam, Jean-Christoph Spinosi, Philippe Jaroussky and member of the Ensemble Matheus being cheered to the rafters at Sunday morning's concert.

Sensibly he realized that an unbroken string of arias would be a trifle hard to take - pax Demofoonte - and brought along Ensemble Matheus to dazzle us with Vivaldi and Telemann. Let me get the one irritant out of the way first - the ensemble leader Jean-Christophe Spinosi resembled Nicolas Sarkowsy on a caffeine high. He had obviously had one too many expresso that morning, his antics both while conducting and during calls were at first amusing but ultimately irritating. However he proved himself an exceptional violinist when he and Laurence Paugam gave us a dazzling Vivaldi Concerto for two violins. It was almost possible forgive him for his inane clowning. In the second half flutists Luis Beduschi and Jean-Marc Goujon gave us another display of virtuosity with Telemann’s Concerto for two flutes.

But the main attraction was Jaroussky - and he showed us why he has been award classical singer of the year twice by the French music industry. His programme of eight arias was inspired by the career of the great castrato Farinelli - music written for him by Poppora, Hasse, Giacomelli and Duni. It ranged from the heroic to the pastoral and let us hear the full range of his talent. The beautiful Sposa, ... non mi conosci, from Giacomelli's Merope, was heart rending and listening to the lovely aria with flute obligato - a wonderful intertwining of voice and instrument - from Duni's Demofoonte, almost made me wish it had been this version we had seen on Friday night. As I mentioned he shines in sweet lyrical singing and gave us displays of his exceptional technique in some beautifully floated passages in two arias from Poppora's Polifemo and here in particular the da capo coloratura was exceptional in its seeming simplicity.

Again a stomping, cheering audience brought him back for two encores and even though the lights had come up and some people had begun to leave, called him, Spinosi and the ensemble back for another round of bows and applause.

02 giugno - Sant'Erasmo di Formia

Whitsun 2009 - This and That

The old town of Salzburg is known for its shop signs not only on the famous Getreidegasse but on the side streets leading off the Domplatz and Residenzplatz. Here are a few of them plus some randoms thoughts about the past few days.

• It’s rather strange that in Italy, where so many rules are ever so gently skirted, the non-smoking policies are strictly observed in bars and restaurants, while in Austria smoking is allowed everywhere. I had forgotten that there are no smoking restrictions in most places in Austria. And boy do those Austrians love to smoke - the air at the Cafe Bazar on a rainy Friday afternoon was a delicate shade of nicotine gray. The other thing that I’ve noticed in Austria is the number of drunks - particularly near the train stations - you see on the streets. A drunk is something you very rarely see in Italy unless its a young tourist freed from the restrictions of home - generally Italians don’t drink to get drunk but as an enjoyment.

• After 30 odd years - and I do mean odd - I guess Laurent and I have habits that we don’t even think about anymore. On Saturday afternoon we were having lunch at Nordsee - a fast food fish restaurant chain - and a young lad at the next table was watching us with some bemusement. I wasn’t finishing my vegetables and Laurent was absent-mindedly spearing roast potatoes from my plate as we talked. I guess every old couple has these little quirks..

• I was in Salzburg BTSOM (Before the Sound of Music) - my first visit was in August of 1969 when most people were coming for the Festival or to visit the house were little Wolfgang sprang into the world presenting it with a symphony he had written during delivery. Two years later the town had been taken over by blue-haired ladies of both sexes, some dragging long-suffering spouses along, on their pilgrimage to see the sacred spot where Christopher Plummer had kissed Julie Andrews, the place where they were married and the Von Trapp family schloss. Now almost 40 years later it is still a big industry in town - if it doesn’t have Mozart’s picture on it, guaranteed it will have Julie Andrews skipping over hills that are alive! Even the world famous Salzburg Marionette Theatre does a wooden puppet production - though a few cynics ask how that is any different from the film?

• People can be deceiving - take the audience at the Festival. They appear to be a conservative, even slightly dour, group of upper middle class people in the 60-65 range. That is not to say there aren’t young people in the audience its just that this sort of Festival and its rather pricy tickets do attract a certain demographic. The dress is conservative and there is often a whiff of mothballs as evening dresses and shawls are pulled out of armoires for the annual airing. When not sporting tuxedoes Gentlemen tend to wear suits, even to the morning concerts, and many Austrian men wear their formal trachten and the ladies are garbed in elaborate dirndls which can be stunningly beautiful but are still very traditional. When you reach your seat it is still considered good manners to greet the people on either side of you with a good morning or evening and even to say auf wiedersen on leaving - though the strolling counter clockwise in the reception room I recall from my first visit has given way to the general bustle of any theatre lobby.
  
  As I said very traditional and conservative - until it comes time to pay tribute to the performers. At that point decorum is thrown of the Untersberg - cheers ring out, feet are stamped rhythmically and the applauding and bravoing can go on for a good 10 or 15 minutes. This is an audience that knows its music and what it likes - and when they like a performer they are not shy about letting them know. One of the joys of this Festival is seeing the smiles of the musicians as they are called out for the fifth or sixth time. There must be a great feeling of satisfaction to feel that much appreciation and love sent in your direction.

• Its been a long time since I have stayed in a hotel like the Bristol - probably the last time was over 25 years ago at the old Plaza Hotel in New York. The Bristol is still family owned and operated and nothing, and I do mean nothing, is too good for its guests. Frau Doctor Hubner, the charming owner, and her son seem to be on duty 24 hours - though I’m sure they do get some rest. In conversation with the Frau Doctor she mentioned that the first thing she looked for in an employee was a love of people, everything else could be taught. They do not have a large staff but a very dedicated and exceptional one and there isn’t one of them that doesn’t live up to her requirement. Take Gunter, the young bar man. Tall, slender, boyish, a bit gangly, he has a smile that lights up the room and an open desire to make sure his guests are happy - and boy can he mix a martini.

01 guigno - Santi Marcellino e Pietro

Lunedy Lunacy

The great Jonathan Winters does some shtick with a stick!



01 giugno - San Giustino di Nablus

Whitsun 2009 - Saturday Night

Before he began the third encore of the evening Marco Beasley (left) shyly said "I'm no opera singer," and then accompanied by Guido Morini on the harpsichord, launched into a lovely, quiet and emotional O Sole Mio. I will quite readily admit I had tears in my eyes - there are people who claim to be opera singers who don't have half his voice or ability to communicate. And it concluded a concert that only confirmed in my mind the incredible talents of Beasley, Morini and their group Accordone.

Last year they celebrated the street music of Napoli, this year the programme was a short "opera" using the life of the extraordinary Don Raimondo de'Sangro, the 18th century Napoletano nobleman, inventor, alchemist, philosopher and polymath as its inspiration. Morini (right) created music to Beasley's libretto that reflected the 1700s but did not ignore modern sonics. Ranging from the liturgical to the lyrical Morini called on period instruments, Bearsley's emotive tenor and dancer/singer Vincenzo Capezzuto to pay tribute to a man often thought to be in league with the devil, thence the title La Tentazione del Male (The Temptations of Evil.) De'Sangro's writing were used as part of the text and as where musings on the works of art he had created for his family chapel - including the miraculous Veiled Christ picture below.

Giuseppe Sanmartino's Veiled Christ was created in 1753 for di Sangro's family chapel in Napoli. The delicacy and power is a miracle of the sculptor's art. One of the wonderful things to be seen in Napoli.

This was the premiere of the work and though there was much to enjoy I would like to have heard it in another venue before passing further judgment. Beasley comes more alive when freed from the constraints of a music stand and the design of the Mozarteum Grand Hall meant that much of Capezzuto's choreography was lost to anyone sitting on the ground level. But several sections stand out as exceptional - the lyrical call to the moon, the dance elegy to the Veiled Christ and two of the tarantella inspired pieces. And every piece was imbued with the two creators obvious admiration for their fellow Napoletano.

Frankly I thought it rather daring of Accordone to premiere this work here as the Salzburg audience can be very conservative but they are audience favorites at the Festival and the almost full house gave them a warm response and demanded three encores. I've already mentioned the final one but the second was a moment of pure inspiration. Beasley announced a lovely serenata La Bella Noeva as the encore, Capezzuto appeared and began dancing. Then he circled the small orchestra and took the hand of cellist Elisabetta De Mircovich and led her over to Beasley. He placed her hand in his and after a moment her voice joined his and gazing at each other they sang of love and the joys of life. It was pure musical magic. And if that wasn't enough to make the eyesight a little blurred then as I said the next encore did the trick.

Members of Accordone, Marco Beasley and Vincenzo Capezzuto respond to the applause of last night's audience at the premiere of La Tentazione del Male.

This was the third appearance for Accordone at the Whitsun Festival, sadly they won't be back next year and I can only hope to get to see them again in Italy in the near future. They have added a dimension to the Festival theme of Napoli, a City of Memories, showing that it is very much a city that is alive and treasures its memories and traditions.

Photos of Beasley and Morini from the Accordone website.

31 maggio - Pentecoste

Whitsun 2009 - Saturday Morning

About half way through the 15 minute ovation that greeted this morning's performance of Nicola Fago's Faraone sommerso conductor Fabio Biondi (above rehearsing with Europa Galante), having acknowledged his quartet of soloists and the members of Europa Galante, turned to the still cheering audience and held up the score. It wasn't just us that you're cheering he was saying - it was this glorious piece of forgotten music. And that was the great difference between last evening's performance of Jommelli's Demofoonte and the Saturday matinee. To my ears, at least, Fago's oratorio was far superior to Jommelli's opera seria and gave the festival a much needed impetus.

Though 60 odd years separate the two - as close as we can figure Faraone was written in 1709, Jommelli's 4th setting of Demofoonte in 1770 - their form is essentially the same. Oratorios were really only an attempt to get around the ban on operas during Lent - the action is moved along in recitative and then commented on in arias. Each part closes with a choral finale. The earlier work's libretto, by an unknown source, is the more concise of the two but still gives plenty of room for emotional outpourings and musical variety. And Fago - a composer of whom little is know - supplied an endless variety of music - menancing, contempletive and dramatic.

And there was more variety of voices - a soprano, contralto, tenor and bass assumed the roles of a Messenger, Aaron, Moses and Pharaoh respectively. And a remarkable quartet they were both vocally and dramatically. Though the performance was unstaged the four interacted with looks, gestures and reactions - and at the request of the performers we held our applause until the end which meant we erupted in wild, stomping applause at the conclusion of both parts.

Tenor James Gilchrist brought a clear ringing sound and some incredible colouratura to Moise's arias and his voice blended beautifully in duet with Marianne Beate Kielland's Aarone. Kielland had a sound that was at times almost that of a counter tenor, whither she did this intentionally I'm not sure but it gave extra depth to her character. Farone is perhaps the most interestingly of the roles and bass Havard Stensvold gave it a powerful reading filled with menace. With some of the most beautiful music in the oratorio Lucia Cirillo as the Messenger drew vivid musical pictures of God's wrath on Pharaoh and the people of Egypt as well as poignancy to her second act aria, though occasionally a touch of period singing "hoot" did creap in.

Biondi led the performance from the first violin desk and gave the score an affectionate if taut reading - it is a piece which he obviously loves. His group takes an obvious joy in playing this music and special praise should go to violist Stefano Marocchi, theorbo player Patxi Montero, harpsichordist Paola Poncet and organist Francesco Barone who supported the recitatives and many of the arias with elegance and virtuosity.

After the they had returned to the stage for the 8th or 9th time and in response to our stomping and clapping Biondi announced - rather delightfully beginning the sentence in Italian trying to continue in German and ending up in English - that they would encore the quartet that ended the first part. It was as delightful the second time and the cheering was renewed.

Damn this is what festival music is all about.

Photos above are from the Salzburg Festival website and are respectively Gilchrist, Kielland, Stensvold and Cirillo.

31 maggio - Visitazione della Beata Vergine

Whitsun 2009 - Friday Night

Riccardo Muti, the singers and orchestra take their bows on opening night of Demofoonte.

My friend OC - the one who got me hooked on this Whitsun Festival thing - decided not to show up this year, another chance for a chat and an aperitivo missed. The reasons she gave were interesting and in many ways prophetic:

This year, though, she's staying home, because as yummy as Demel's Esterhazytorte, as historically informed Tomaselli's coffee is, between the fact that Jommelli's musical talent is not on the same level of Paisiello's absolute genius and that Demofoonte, no disrespect intended, is simply not as engaging as Calandrino's crazy antics, OC chose to sit this edition out.

I'm sorry to say she's right. Despite all the efforts that Riccardo Muti, his talented cast and Orchestra Giovanni Luigi Cherubini put into the performance there was not escaping the fact that Demofoonte just didn't do it for me.

For almost four hours we followed the story of the Thracen King and his family - through secret - and possibly incestuous - marriages, switched babies and immovable monarchs and frankly when everyone came down to the fore stage to sing about living happily ever after I was relieved that it was finally over.

Again it had nothing to do with the performance and everything to do with what was being performed. Only when he broke out of the mold of opera seria did Jommelli's score take wing - the trio that turns into a duet ending Act 1, the passages of accompanied recitative and the heartbreaking duet that ended Act 2 all had a power that was lacking in much of the rest of the music. And sadly all the love and work that Muti put into seemed like it could have been directed to something else.

Muti had gathered a cast of young singers - in the case of countertenor Antonio Giovannini too young to be convincing as the old nobleman - and coached them with loving care. Soprano Maria Grazia Shiavo (left with Lo Monaco), as the much put upon Dircea, was the obvious star of the evening closely followed by mezzo Jose Maria Lo Monaco in the travesty role of her husband Timante. In both arias and ensemble passages the two gave intense, dramatic performances and their performance of the fore mentioned duet was the dramatic high point of the evening. Tenor Dmitry Korchak was a ringing Demofoonte but again was unconvincing as a character - though that may have been as much Jommelli's fault as his.

Of the secondary singers Eleonora Buratto (right with Coladonato)as the foreign princess Creusa showed promise of something special on her initial entrance that unfortunately was unfulfilled. Valentina Coladonato sang her arias well but behaved like a young Cherubini with a clothing fetish. For some reason director Cesare Lievi had decided to treat these two as comic figures however most of it was either flat or in the case of Coladonato sniffing Creusa's clothing embarrassing.

Margaret Palli's stage set is strewn with obstacles for the singers.

Despite his lengthy programme note I did not find that Lievi brought anything original to the staging other than having the two singers en travesti behaving like Principal Boys from Christmas pantomine and the feeble attempts at humour. And frankly I am getting tired of settings that require singers to clamber over inclines and uneven platforms. Yes we know that the world is topsy turvey but singers need two feet planted firmly on the ground to give their best. And I'm sorry but if the damned surtitles say "I give you my hand as a pledge of my fidelity!" shouldn't the singer be doing exactly that not potting a plant?

Rather surprisingly the horn section of the Cherubini had a bit of trouble with the interlude March and were ragged in a few other spots. Otherwise Muti drew from them their normal high standard of playing - its just that what they were playing wasn't very interesting.

As a side note Muti has choosen a Jommelli oratorio Betulia liberta to end next year's Festival and it will be bookended by the young Mozart's setting of the same libretto. It will be interesting to see how the 15 year old genius from Salzburg compares to his older colleague.

Photographs by Sylvia Lelli - from Salzburg Festival Webside.

30 maggio - San Giovanna d'Arco

Whitsun 2009 - Pfingstfestspeile

This is the third year of Riccardo Muti’s 5 year tenure as Artistic Director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival and the programme again highlights music of the Napoletano school.Muti is, of course, a native of Napoli and its been rumored that one of his favorite pass-times is to delve into dusty old scores from the various Napoletano conservatories that flooded the world with composers, musicians and singers during the 18th and 19th centuries. This year he unearthed an opera seria, Demofoonte, by a greatly admired and lauded composer of his period, Niccolo Jommelli. We’ll be hearing Jommelli’s third setting of one of Pietro Metastasio's most often set libretti. The great Roman born poet was the source of most opera seria of the period. It was said that his lines often sang themselves and his sense of drama and pacing was unparalleled. His subjects were often mythical, sometimes historical and always involved love unrequited or thwarted, identity mistaken and royal power as both a force of corruption and beneficence.

Opera seria had its conventions - recitative, most often only accompanied by harpsichord and bass continuo, moved the story along and arias allowed the characters to give vent to their reactions to what had just happened. At the end of an aria the singer always exited the stage whither it made dramatic sense or not. Duets where uncommon, trios even less so and choruses tended to be sung by the principals only at the conclusion as the clemency of Tito or glory of Caesar were praised by all and sundry - including often characters who had met a grizzly end but were resurrected because a bass or contralto line was needed to swell the ranks. The castrati ruled the stage - those “singing capons” who also were a product of both the barber’s knife and the music schools of Napoli. The Caesar who sang of “coming, seeing and conquering” did so in a contralto or soprano voice while holding a heroic pose center stage sporting a plume bedecked helmet. Giovanni Velutti (right), one of the last great castrati, had the height of the plumes stipulated in his contract - he also demanded a dramatic entrance on horseback whither justified by the action or not. Given that castration is frowned upon today - a good thing unless you're really looking for authenticity - these roles are often sung my women, though the sudden wealth of counter tenors these days has seen a return to men in the roles. Muti has chosen women for the main roles and counter tenors for the secondary characters.

But we will be hearing the popular French counter tenor Philippe Jaroussky in concert of heroic arias on Sunday morning - following the old tradition matinee at Salzburg means late morning. Saturday morning brings a matinee by Fabio Bondi and his Europa Galante - Farone Sommerso, an almost unknown cantata by Francesco Nicola Fago retelling the story of Pharaoh's swimming accident in the Red Sea. That evening Accordone, one of my favorite groups, will be presenting a new programme intriguingly called The Temptations of Evil and inspired by the Napoletano scholar, alchemist, arts patron and all-round eccentric Raimondo de'Sangro. The Festival concludes Monday morning with a performance of Paisiello’s Mass for the Dead conducted by Muti with a cast of young singers in the Felsenreitschole - most familiar as the place where Julie Andrews and the kids did their disappearing act from the nasty Nazis.And of course the maestro will, as he was for the opera, be leading his exceptional group of young musicians - the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini. This group of young musicians changes regularly as they serve an exceptional apprenticeship under Muti and then move on to the major orchestras of the world.

Its going to be a full weekend but then that’s what a Festival should be.

Photos: Riccardo Muti by Silvia Lelli; Philippe Jaroussky by Simon Fowler


30 maggio - Santa Giovanna d'Arco