This year’s Donaufestwochen director Michi Gaigg bows to “two giants of music history: Mozart and Bach”. The heart of the opera comes from the former: the fragment “Zaide”, which lacks the overture, monologues and ending. The 24-year-old’s work regarding a sultan who desires a European slave “represents a modern power structure and tells a story regarding human trafficking and oppression,” says Manuela Kloibmüller regarding her tenth Donaufestwochen directorship. Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” as a “refined version for trio” (Gaigg) is also the prelude to the concert series with the Neue Hofkapelle Graz and Johannes Silberschneider (narrator), the speech will be given by Viennese philosopher Robert Pfaller, who teaches at the University of Art and Design Linz.
Old master Bach, on the other hand, devotes himself to e.g. the Company of Music under Johannes Hiemetsberger with motets in the Waldhausen Collegiate Church. Harpsichordist Reinhard Führer plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The Viennese cellist Matthias Bartolomey spans the arc from Bach to today with his own compositions in Grein. The opera workshop invites all eight to 15-year-olds to immerse themselves in the “spirit of early music” (July 17-21). This year’s commissioned work goes to the Italian and organist Pier Damiano Peretti. (cash)
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