Two magnificent open-air opera performances: Der Freischütz and Der fliegende Holländer
Waiting for Der Freischütz
Bregenzer Festspiele, Bregenz (7 August 2025)
Waiting for Der fliegende Holländer
Oper im Steinbruch, St. Margarethen (8 August 2025)
At the beginning of August, I attended two consecutive evenings of opera performances at these festivals, watching the productions on their main stages. Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz (The Magic Bullet) has been running in Bregenz Festival since last year, where the production changes every two years. Meanwhile, Richard Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) was on the programme in Opera in the Quarry, where a new production is staged every year.
It's interesting that both are works by German composers, with Weber's music being considered a precursor to Wagner's. Another coincidence is that both operas draw on fairy tales involving magic, with the number seven playing a critical role in both tales.
Interestingly, at the festivals in question, Der Freischütz, whose story is set in a forest village in the countryside, was staged on water, while Der fliegende Holländer, whose story is set in a fishing village by the sea, was staged on land. As part of creating the atmosphere for the staging, before the performances began, crow sounds were heard from the loudspeakers at the one on the water and seagull sounds at the one on land. The man-made and natural surroundings of the locations also enhanced the atmospheres; a lake steamboat passed by behind in the one on the water, and a flock of wild ducks flew overhead in a V formation in the one on land.
Der Freischütz
Carl Maria von Weber's romantic opera Der Freischütz, which premiered in Berlin in 1821, tells the story of Max, who sells his soul to the devil to win a shooting competition and marry his beloved Agathe. The events take place in Bohemia in the first half of the 17th century, immediately after the Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants. With a libretto by Friedrich Kind, Der Freischütz essentially reveals the conflict, tension and reckoning between piety and heresy (the belief that one's own faith is genuine and that of others is demonised), just as in the Thirty Years' War itself.
Philipp Stölzl, a director originally trained in stage design, gained fame throughout his career by directing music videos for iconic artists and bands such as Rammstein, Madonna, Pavarotti and Mick Jagger. He later made a name for himself in cinema by winning prestigious awards.
In his interpretation of Der Freischütz, Stölzl has kept the story in the historical period in which it takes place, but relocated it to a submerged village. He did not stop there. Rather than treating the stage design as an object separate from the shore, as in all previous productions staged at the Lake Stage of the Bregenz Festival, he transformed it into a landscape utilising the entire area, extending down to the foot of the audience. In this landscape, in terms of both stage design and mise-en-scène, Stölzl drew on familiar elements from horror literature and cinema, ranging from Edgar Allen Poe and Michael Jackson to Tim Burton and Harry Potter. These include a skeletal horse driven by a carriage, a giant snake, crows, zombies, dry trees, crooked wooden houses and gravestones, wolf howls, the sound of the wind, fog and the full moon. Stölzl's skill lies in balancing all these elements; he uses just the right amount of each one.
The most striking, mischievous and, indeed, the most interventionist element of Stölzl's interpretation of Der Freischütz is his decision to keep the devil Samiel, who has originally a minor role, on stage from the very beginning to the very end, elevating him to the status of the story's director and narrator, guiding the entire plot. Jan Dvořák therefore wrote Samiel's lines from scratch in line with Stölzl's concept. Described in the original libretto as the ‘Black Hunter’, here Samiel appears as the epitome of the devil, clad in bright red tights and a tight-fitting hood. Samiel is a kind of Faust's Mephistopheles; he is a seducer who tempts Max not only to cast magical bullets through his assistant Kaspar, but also to engage in homosexual relations and carnal pleasure.
Stölzl starts the opera at the end, but without the deus ex machina (divine intervention) ending found in the original work. As the overture plays, the seventh bullet from Max's rifle hits and kills his beloved Agathe. The funeral procession, led by Samiel, carries Agathe to her grave. In response to an angry gesture from Agathe's best friend Ännchen, Max is hanged. Samiel then freezes the play and, in a meta-theatrical gesture that has become popular in recent performing arts productions, turns to us and says, 'It can't end so quickly. We promised our audience two hours of entertainment,' before rewinding the hands of the broken clock tower on stage and presenting the story from the beginning. Another amusing example of the meta-theatre is when Samiel says, just before the opera's most famous music, the Hunters' Chorus, begins: 'Here it is! The part everyone has been waiting for is about to start.'
Two hours later, the bullet fired from Max's rifle hits Kaspar, just as it does in the original story. Max confesses that he won the contest by using magic bullets, for which he is punished. However, the Hermit intervenes, pardons Max and arranges for him to marry Agathe. However, even in this happy ending, Stötzl cannot resist a little mischief, assigning the role of the Hermit to Samiel, the devil, who has changed costumes. At the last moment, before the lights go out, we notice Samiel, who has thrown his costume into the water, grinning at us.
Stölzl's intervention in the original work's content does not end there. Not only does he impregnate Agathe with someone other than Max, he also places her in a lesbian relationship with her close friend Ännchen, with whom she plans to flee to Switzerland. In other words, by mischievously bringing up the topics that are fundamentally opposed to the religious morality that was exalted due to the necessity of the time in which the original opera was written, it carries the work to our day, where more liberal roles in terms of gender prevail.
Stölzl also intervenes musically in the original work.
While he has cut some arias, he has also placed an additional trio consisting of a double bass, accordion and clavichord on stage. Alongside the orchestra performing Weber's music live on the closed stage behind the audience, this trio performs additional pieces inspired by folk music, composed by Ingo Ludwig Frenzel.
In addition to being staged outdoors almost every evening, the performances on the Lake Stage demand a strenuous effort from the performers due to the vastness of the stage area, its uneven terrain and the fact that they often have to move around in water up to their knees. Each evening, different cast members take turns, from the orchestra conductor to the soloists. On the evening I attended, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Patrik Ringborg, performed the orchestral score with warmth, power and romance; Ringborg had drawn out a Wagnerian soundscape from the orchestra. All of the soloists gave profound and satisfying performances, both musically and dramatically. Tenor Attilio Glaser was lyrical as Max, showcasing his powerful voice, while soprano Irina Simmes was emotional as Agathe, enchanting the audience with her beautiful voice. Soprano Katharina Ruckgaber was bold and determined as Ännchen. Bass-baritone Oliver Zwarg was mesmerising as Kaspar with his powerful and impressive voice. Moritz Treuenfels, an actor from the Residenztheater in Munich, one of the most prestigious theatres in German-speaking countries, was witty, sharp-tongued and seductive as Samiel, captivating the entire audience.
Ultimately, Philipp Stölzl, who, alongside directing and stage design, also took charge of the atmospheric lighting design with Florian Schmitt, presents a visually rich production, each scene containing a surprising mise-en-scène idea, sharp, witty and innovative in content, musically bold, and magnificent, entertaining and satisfying in every respect.
Der fliegende Holländer
The opera Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), which premiered in Dresden in 1843, is based on the legend of a captain who is condemned to remain at sea forever without dying. Every seven years, however, he is allowed to come ashore from his ghost ship and will be freed from this curse if he finds a wife who will love and remain faithful to him unconditionally. In Wagner's libretto, Senta, a dreamy young woman living in a fishing village on the Norwegian coast, abandons her fiancé Erik, believing she is the one who will save the legendary Dutchman. Meanwhile, Senta's father, the sailor Daland, makes a deal with a ghost captain he met on his last voyage, to marry his daughter in exchange for a substantial sum of loot. Realizing she has risked betraying her fiancée to accompany him, the Dutchman is disappointed to discover Senta's unfaithfulness. As the Dutchman leaves the village, to drift at sea for another seven years, Senta follows him, committing suicide by jumping into the waves.
Philipp M. Krenn, the director of the production, comes from an acting background and has trained as assistant to prominent opera directors such as Robert Carsen, Alvis Hermanis, and Damiano Michieletto, alongside Philipp Stötzl, at festivals such as Salzburg and Bregenz, as well as prestigious opera houses including the Teatro La Fenice, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Bayerische Staatsoper.
The Flying Dutchman in St. Margarethen is the first of two Wagner operas staged by Krenn in the summer of 2025. The other was Parsifal, again in Austria, this time at the Erl Tirol Festival. In contrast to his interpretation of Parsifal, Krenn opted for a more traditional and straightforward staging of The Flying Dutchman, making no significant alterations to Wagner's opera in terms of content, interpretation or musicality.
The most defining feature of Krenn's staging was perhaps its cinematic allure.
In addition to this, the production's extraordinary stage design by Momme Hinrichs challenges the notion that it is performed in the world's largest stage area, spanning 7,000 square metres. Hinrichs designed a 70-metre-wide sea with 12-metre-high waves on either side, concealing the emergence of the 19th-century galley — the story's most magnificent element. He positioned the interior and exterior spaces of the land-based sections of the story on the steep quarry wall at the centre of the stage, resembling a bird's nest. Furthermore, Hinrichs designed a Norwegian village up on the edge of the quarry wall, featuring a church and houses and a lighthouse where the impressive finale took place.
However, when the immense stage area was used to its fullest extent in scenes in which the protagonists formed psychological bonds with each other — such as when the Dutchman first met Daland and convinced him, or when Erik told Senta not to betray their engagement — the distance between them undermined the tension and attraction, weakening the narrative.
These shortcomings were overshadowed by the fact that the production had been transformed into a cinematic spectacle. For instance, when the Dutchman's ghost ship first appeared in all its glory — a scene not present in the original story — a fight broke out between the Dutchman and the other sailors, complete with guns, kicks, and acrobatic moves on ropes. It was as if the scene had been taken straight from the Pirates of the Caribbean. (The director of the live-action scenes was Ran Arthur Braun from Show Talent Network.) This fight scene came as no surprise, given that the Dutchman was depicted as a Johnny Depp-esque character on the production's poster.
In the second act, which took place indoors, live footage shot by two cameramen was projected onto the quarry wall in sepia tones with a grainy filter reminiscent of old films. This allows close-ups of scenes that are distant from the audience while evoking the turn-of-the-century atmosphere (video work by Roland Horvath).
In the final scene, Senta set herself on fire and jumped from the highest point of the lighthouse. Then, the entire sea and village were engulfed in flames, creating another spectacular effect.
In contrast to the forced theatrical elements of the staging and scenography, the musical quality of the production was exceptionally high. Each evening, Patrick Lange — the German conductor with extensive experience of Wagner operas who has performed at major opera houses around the world — led the Piedra Festival Orchestra in a richly coloured and powerful Wagner performance.
As might be expected, the cast of each role consisted of three singers. On the evening I attended, Georgian baritone George Gagnidze, winner of a special prize at the 3rd Leyla Gencer Singing Competition in 2000 when Leyla Gencer was still alive and now one of the stars of the New York Metropolitan Opera, gave a powerful and impressive performance as a stern and menacing Dutchman. The youngest of the three soloists playing Senta, German soprano Johanna Will, was convincing with her dramatic abilities and her bright and confident voice, even in the highest notes. The interpretation of the experienced Chinese bass Liang Li as Daland, though rounding off the words, was satisfying. As Erik, Croatian lyric tenor Nezad Ciča, with the softness of his warm, velvety voice, formed a successful duo with Johanna Will.
Overall, Der fliegende Holländer was a satisfying production in terms of musical proficiency. However, the show-like elements added to make the performance more appealing seemed somewhat tacked onto the narrative.
What awaits us in 2026?
Over the next two summers, the Bregenz Festival's Lake Stage will see the first ever staging of Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. It will be staged by the renowned and experienced Italian opera director Damiano Michieletto.
The 2026 programme at the Opera in the Quarry will feature Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, again after an 11-year hiatus.
The programmes of both festivals include more than just opera performances on the main stages. Bregenz will welcome audiences with orchestra concerts and small-scale opera productions in both the indoor hall at the Festival Centre and the existing theatre building in the city. Lilli Paasikivi, the festival's new artistic director, took up her post this year and has included Leoš Janáček's opera The Adventures of Mr Brouček in the 2026 programme, alongside La Traviata. This lesser-known opera will be directed by American Yuval Sharon and conducted by Czech Robert Jindra, who will lead the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
Opera in the Quarry, organised by the Esterházy Foundation, takes place in the courtyard of the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt, the hometown of Joseph Haydn, just 15 minutes from St. Margarethen. It offers a concert programme featuring high-calibre and star performers, appealing to classical music enthusiasts. Next year's programme has not yet been announced.
All photos and videos © Mehmet Kerem Özel
The original Turkish version of this article was published in the October 2025 issue of Andante (No. 228). .
Comments
Post a Comment