ROSSINI IN WILDBAD announces the casts of all productions at the annual press conference. 2024 we celebrat the 35th Jubilee Festival from 18-28 July. After small beginnings 1989 the Belcanto Opera Festival has earned remarkable international reputation for repertory and artist discoveries.
The main production Le Comte Ory (Paris, 1828) is led by the team Jochen Schönleber (stage director) and Antonino Fogliani (musical director). Audience favorite Patrick Kabongo plays the title role, his opponents are Sofia Mchedlishvili as Countess Adele and Diana Haller as Isolier. Fabio Capitanucci is the drinking buddy Raimbaud and the French bass, Natanael Tavernier, sings the desperate teacher. The performance aims to be a playful variant of the story about the count’s libertine, in which the women are always one step ahead and let the men’s fantasies run wild. The performances are on the 20th, 25th, 27th July and will be recorded for Operavision. The production comes from the Royal Opera Festival in Krakow and premiered there a week earlier.
In L’italiana in Algeri (Venice, 1813), which is shown as a production by the Akademie BelCanto, with the exception of Emmanuel Franco’s elderly Taddeo, only young scholars from the Academy sing, including the remarkable Turkish bass Dogukan Özkan (Mustafà), who recently appeared as a powerful, virtuoso Maometto II in Istanbul and the young Russian-Ukrainian mezzosoprano Polina Anikina in the title role. Hyunduk Kim as Lindoro was an enchanting young lover in last year’s Signor Bruschino and the two Italian winners of the International BelCantoPrize 2023 are also there: Francesco Bossi as Haly and Camilla Carol Farias as Zulma. The cast is completed by the Ucrainian scholarship holder Oksana Vakula from Graz. José Miguel Pérez Sierra, whose las production of this opera in Santiago de Chile was awarded the best performance of the year in South America, conducts, Jochen Schönleber directs. Premiere is on July 21st. with further performances on July 23rd, 26th and 28th in Bad Wildbad. This performances will also be recorded.
The eagerly awaited modern premiere of the opera Masaniello by Rossini’s friend and colleague Michele Carafa (Paris, 1827, in French) about the tragically ending of Neapolitan fishermen’s revolt is excellently cast with Mert Süngü in the difficult title role and with the young French soprano Catherine Trottmann as his wife Leona. Natanael Tavernier plays the schemer. Four tenors are required in this piece: Luis Magallanes, Hyunduk Kim and Massimo Frigato as well as the two Bel Canto prizewinners Bossi and Farias can be heard again. Nicola Pascoli conducts. The performance will be recorded for SWR.
As opening performance of the 35th festival, Rossini’s great Messa di Gloria will be played on the tower of the Baumwipfelpfad with Kabongo, Süngü, Otohara and Özkan under the direction of José Miguel Pérez Sierra. An incomparable concert in a venue with a remarkable score at sunset.
There is change of the program for the concert Arias for Giovanni David. This concert for one of the legendary tenors of the Rossini era is postponed and replaced this year by a concert for another tenor legend with the title Two Faces of Gilbert-Louis Duprez. Mert Süngü sings arias that were written or specially adapted for Duprez, including Otello by Rossini, Lac des fées by Auber, pieces by Kreutzer and Coccia and canzones from the hand of Duprez himself. After many years, belcanto specialist Alessandro De Marchi is finally conducting again in the festival, and he also accompanies the canzoni on the fortepiano. The concert will be recorded.
The last big concert is the Waldkonzert (forest concert) in a glade surrounded by the high trees of the Black Forest with an excellent acoustic response on the Sommerberg. Here music director Antonino Fogliani conducts Schubert and Rossini. Yo Otahara, this year’s recipient of the Inge Borkh Scholarship in honor of the great dramatic soprano from Mannheim, sings Schubert and Rossini.
All projects are accompanied by the Filharmonia Krakowie.