An open-air stage requires different techniques, not least because there is a difference in scale to an enclosed stage. The festival has become renowned for its imaginative solutions, no better than in British director Richard Jones’ Millennium creations of a huge page-turning skeleton for Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (1999 & 2000), and giant postcards of Paris for Puccini’s La boheme (2001 & 2002). This year the festival presents André Chénier, the most famous work by the Italian composer Umberto Giordano.
Festival
André Chénier is a brilliantly vivid historical drama and a human tragedy of shattering intensity. Set against the background of the French Revolution, the opera has strong appeal both as a passionate love story and as a historical thriller.
“It seems as though André Chénier was composed especially for the Bregenz Seebühne. The opera presents a perfect mix of ingredients for the venue: a thrilling story and four strong characters, caught between the excesses of the Ancien Régime and the terror of the French Revolution. Giordano’s music is verismo of the very highest calibre and drives the highvoltage plot forward with breathtaking speed.”
The Festival-Lounge offers you and your guests all the privileges and comforts of an exclusive evening at the Bregenz Festival. As a lounge guest, a parking place is reserved for you. A lounge hostess will welcome you with a drink, take you on a tour back-stage then serve you with a four-course dinner. After this, equipped with Swarovski opera glasses you take your seat in the comfortable, covered viewing area of the Festival Lounge to enjoy the opera on the Floating Stage.