Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (Aix-en-Provence, 2026)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (Aix-en-Provence, 2026)

Festival d'Aix-en Prevence, 2026

Leonardo García Alarcón, Clément Cogitore, Ying Fang, Mauro Peter, Sabine Devieilhe, Sean Michael Plumb, Brindley Sherratt, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Alix Le Saux, Ashley Dixon, Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Emma Fekete, Rodolphe Briand, Damien Pass, Jonghyun Park, Yvon Moltzen, Jakob Geppert, Cléo Lou Straka, Zoé Höche

ARTE Concert - 21st July 2026

It's amazing - I think so anyway - how a great work of operatic art can be continually refreshed and revitalised hundreds of years after its creation, always having something new to tell us about our own times. That's the measure of great art of course and a great artform. Indeed there are few works in opera as enduring, as complete and unchallengingly brilliant as Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (although I can think of several other Mozart operas alone that fit that description). It's amazing how this can be achieved also with a minimal lightness of musical and directorial touch and without compromising the original mood and intent of the work. With a background in filmmaking, French director Clément Cogitore, sets out his stall for this production at the 2026 Aix-en-Provence Festival with simple grainy old movie footage, placing you in the world this particular Zauberflöte is going to inhabit, work its magic and share all its warmth, wisdom and love for humanity.

It's a historical period, but the implications and the human resonance of the WWII period chosen are not difficult to see applying to the contemporary world situation around us today. The opening footage is of people emerging out of the ruins of Berlin in the aftermath of the Second World War, the characters on the stage extending this out into the theatre and seeming to bring the audience into it, stepping back into time and really feeling like you are there in the midst of it. The focus is on clearing up and rebuilding, particularly from the perspective of the need to provide instruction and guidance to the children who have been left with a destroyed present and an unpromising future.

It's a thoughtful response to Mozart's opera on the part of the director, who by placing it in this setting captures the character emerging from an age of darkness much more effectively than the more typical magical fantasy setting ever manages to achieve. More than just delving deeper, Cogitore also attempts to widen the journey that Tamino and Pamina take to dig their way out of this bleak world by using children to stand in for the tenor and soprano singers as they pass through childhood and adolescence before the singers take over as young adults. There's a minor concern that the production might lose some of the 'magic' of The Magic Flute - and it has to be said that there is certainly less comedy playing in this version - but Die Zauberflöte is an opera of many dimensions, moods and colours and it can be instructive to focus on other aspects.

Cogitore's focus is indeed on the 'instructive' side of the opera. In Act I, Tamino is a child, struggling to survive amid the rubble and ruins; as is Papageno, doing what he can to get by with the meagre opportunities for finding food. The three ladies are dressed like those seen in the historical footage clearing bricks from the ruins, doing what they can to restore order and purpose, educating the children, providing food and providing protection from Tamino's terrifying dreams of snakes, setting the young boy a challenge to bring hope and a sense of purpose. The spoken dialogue is slightly adapted to the post-war situation in this way without changing the tone and intent of the original. It also brings a human element to the work. Not mythical figures, but people who have suffered real hardships and fears.

Further footage underlines the sense of purpose, the three boys a supportive gang of Tom Sawyers and Huckleberry Finns. Pamina meanwhile is in great danger on the streets of New York, encountering or trying to keep out of the clutches of Monostatos as a New York policeman or security guard. Her mother, the Queen of the Night is indeed just a mother who has lost her daughter to the promise of the bright lights of the city, with all the concerns that brings. And of course, with Tamino and Pamina starting out in this way as young children, it brings greater emphasis on the dangers they face as they make a necessary journey to rebuild a new world shaped by a fresh new outlook, not to be subject to the old ways of ancient orders and ancient enmities. Which in this case means a path that is not pre-determined by either the Queen of the Night or Sarastro.

There is a natural shift that takes place in Act II and the director gives the opening dialogue before 'O Isis und Osiris' time to make its point and establish where we are in the next stage in Tamino and Pamina's journey, the young children now adolescents. Reflecting the dress of Monostatos as a New York officer of the peace - a corrupt one - in Act I, we now find ourselves in what looks like a booming post-war Golden Age of Capitalism of the 1940s into the 1950s. Sarastro is the blind president of a large company, taking questions from his 'shareholders' on the suitability of the new junior executive protégé he has in mind to presumably take over the running of the company. Or something along those lines. The 'company' seems to be involved in scientific research of a dubious nature and the outcome of the 'recruitment process' is a little more ambiguous than usual at the conclusion.

The production certainly puts a different complexion on the opera's central conflict of enlightenment versus obscurantism, reason versus superstition, peace over aggression, but ends up coming to the same conclusion that a new generation can (or needs to) learn from the conflicts and failings of the previous generation and lead humanity "in joy and peace towards a better world". It's an optimistic view inspired by the Age of Enlightenment that hasn't quite come to fruition: if we have undoubtedly made some progress there have been huge steps backward as well. The projections of the brave new world of the post-war boom USA does reflect the ambiguity of this and make its failings recognisable, although perhaps wisely the production team avoid the rather negative portrayal of the dark skinned Monostatos as a reflection of race issues in the USA.

Under the musical direction of Leonardo García Alarcón - whose background is more in early baroque opera - the overture takes off at full tilt, but thereafter is filled with all the warmth, optimism, character and beauty of the music. I mean, The Magic Flute really is a thing of almost transcendent beauty and if you can get a stage production to reflect that and maybe even find new aspects to highlight, so much the better, but it's no doubt difficult to reconcile all the contrasts and tones. There is less of a comic element here certainly, fewer of Papageno's antics; that character is still there but Cogitore chooses to focus on other human characteristics that are deemed more important to highlight at the present time. What is important is that nothing in the work is taken for granted, as routine or going through motions, but rather honing in on the emotional undercurrents and reflecting on what charges and transforms them into actions.

Sadly, Tamino's nature as a model to aspire to still remains elusive. Cogitore in an interview for the Aix production admits as much and confirms that is the main reason for the choice of showing him starting out as a child and learning from the ways of the world. Mauro Peter's task is complicated somewhat then by having to let young actors act out two-thirds of the opera, and while sounding fine, doesn't succeed in imbuing Tamino with any more personality. The same challenge faced Ying Fang, who was nonetheless a superb Pamina, striving to make a connection with her 'avatar'. Her 'Ach, ich fühl's' demonstrated the richness of her voice and the emotional charge behind it. Papageno was intentionally underplayed by Sean Michael Plumb, but sung well. If that sound like the singing was lacking, it's not the case. Often, not always but often, Tamino and Pamina are rather lacking in character and tend to be overshadowed by the other larger than life figures. Not so here, where I feel the balance better distributed.

By the same token, despite their characters' blaze and bluster neither Königen der Nacht nor Sarastro dominated. Sabine Devieilhe doesn't have the heft of a typical Queen of the Night and is lighter of voice but more than capable for the challenges of the role and the all-important interpretation of character. Sarastro's booming character likewise was suitably adjusted by Brindley Sherratt and the director, depicted as blind (to the future?) rather than authoritarian. I'm not sure it quite reconciles or finds a path between the darkness and the light - Robert Carsen did that best for my money in Paris in 2014 - but then The Magic Flute should always be a reflection of where we lie on that path today and the period chosen here does force us to view the world now on the edge of great change (if not destruction) and consider who we chose to lead us through it.

External links: ARTE Concert, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, La Scène Numérique du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten (Aix-en-Provence, 2026)

Richard Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten

Festival d'Aix-en Provence, 2026

Klaus Mäkelä, Barrie Kosky, Michael Spyres, Vida Miknevičiūtė, Nina Stemme, Brian Mulligan, Ambur Braid, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Tomasz Kumięga, Daniel Miroslaw, Robert Lewis, Ella Taylor, Héloïse Mas, Laurence Pouderoux, Eugénie Lefebvre, Laura Jarrell

ARTE Concert - 9th July 2026

Die Frau ohne Schatten is one of the most darkly enigmatic of all opera works, shrouded in ominous metaphors with uncommon mythical imagery and obscure meaning. Composed between 1914 and 1917, it's above all a product of its time, Richard Strauss and his librettist, the poet Hugo von Hofmannstahl, grappling with the industrialisation of war and a time of social upheaval; dealing with a modern era of new philosophical thinking and artistic expression in their Viennese society and trying to find a new way of expressing all that in theatrical and musical terms. 

Restaging the opera and working out how much to adhere to its original stage directions in order to retain the underlying purpose of the work is up for grabs and evidently it inspires many impressive interpretations and re-imaginings. Above all of course the work has a tremendous inner power of its own that never fails to put across. Giving the work to a director like Barrie Kosky to direct at the Aix-en-Provence Festival is therefore an intriguing proposition.

Behind all the fairy tale imagery and obscure symbolism there is at least one clear theme that runs through the work. The Woman without a Shadow is clearly stated as a metaphor for the infertility of the Empress, who since she is unable to conceive a child, her husband the Emperor will turn into stone. Christof Loy’s astonishing "literal" 2011 Salzburg Festival reproduction of the 1955 Vienna recording of this opera by Karl Böhm managed managed to tease out a deeply moving reflection on all the unborn children of those who died in the war. Or as the Aix programme notes succinctly describe the theme of the opera in a wider context, it's a question of "what is the essence of humanity and why should it be perpetuated?"

It's also notable of course that there is a clear distinction drawn between the Emperor of a mythical realm's desire for a successor and the human world of Barak the Dyer and his wife's choice to bring children into the world under rather more difficult conditions. The work captures the human tenderness in the pain of living for both these couples and Strauss’s music gets to the heart of it with beautiful lyricism and with the emotional and psychological depth that Hofmannstahl pours imaginatively into the fable. The other interpretation - or an additional one on top of that one - is that the shadow represents the conscience and the danger of those who act and rule without the basic human quality of having a conscience. But essentially whichever way you look at it, it's about defining humanity and its potential for turning towards destruction and self-destruction and the consequences of which are made quite clear at the end of the second Act.

The opening of the third Act III consequently hits hard, all the more so in this production due to the exceptional singing of Brian Mulligan as Barak and Ambur Braid as his wife. Kosky however gives them the ideal platform: a completely white box, the lighting such indeed that there is almost no trace of any shadows (it's the first time I've ever seen Die Frau ohne Schatten where the stage lighting does actually make the shadows disappear); just the hint of reflection but no shadow. Husband and wife wander in space, blind to each other, the effect almost overwhelming as the intent of this elaborately arranged and conceived work it is indeed supposed to be. The subsequent scene between the Empress and the Nurse in the subsequent scene in the box no less effective, again the singing expressing everything, Vida Miknevičiūtė as the Empress in particular ability stunning in her delivery, the killing of her nurse played by Nina Stemme coming as quite a shock on top of that. In a work filled with symbolism like this, the director is free to let their own imagination run riot to serve the imagery and intent and Kosky obliges right up to a suitably enigmatic ending.

The work contains all the ingredients to impress and touch deeply. There is a contrast and dynamic between the two worlds that is brought out as much by the singing as the score and libretto, making it feel vital, real and alive. As noted above, both Vida Miknevičiūtė and Canadian soprano Ambur Braid are both superb here. Typically for Strauss the vocal challenges are considerable for the female roles, but the emotional journey is also critical and both handle it impressively. Brian Mulligan as Barak is also outstanding, looking and sounding like he is having a deep crisis and emotional breakdown at times, but his singing is assured and controlled. Once an Empress herself, Nina Stemme's experience with this opera brings additional depth to the role of the Nurse and she still sings and performs to a very high standard. There really is not other standard in this opera that will do in this opera for any of the main roles. Michael Spyres has recently been taking on heavier roles like this and his voice, a little deeper now, is ideal and as golden as ever, but doesn't seem to establish a sense of character or even real menace as the Emperor.

With voices of that quality to work with, Barrie Kosky likewise tones down his usual excesses when presented with an opera of rich excess. Can you do a minimalist Die Frau ohne Schatten? Would you even want to? Would you ever expect Barrie Kosky to deliver a minimalist production? And yet, the director finds the right balance here, seeking to delve deeper into the meaning and the human above the spectacle and glamour, allowing flashes of wonder at the dream of other possibilities in a world yet to be born, but making sure that the reality always intrudes. The music does exactly the same. There is a distinction between the grubby ramshackle tower of the Dyer and the sterile, cold and lifeless world of the Emperor. Sterile and lifeless provide the appropriate imagery that works much better here rather than place of magical fantasy and wonder. The fantastical touches when they are used - a giant rocking chair with blades for rockers, the headless messengers of Keikobad, and a glittering golden dancer - are original and strikingly effective.

While individual scenes are impressive, well imagined, visually effective and sung and acted as well as they can be, the challenges of bringing it all into a coherent drama remain. Does Die Frau ohne Schatten really have any deeper meaning, or is it enough to be a broad meditation on birth and existence? There are many other little observations and truths broached here, but it's difficult to see them adding up to something greater. Perhaps it's the fact that it can't be easily pinned down that makes it a great work, one that allows new teams to bring a new vision and new ideas. What is clear is that this production is a fabulous account of an endlessly fascinating opera, and you can't complain about that. With Klaus Mäkelä taking on a considerable challenge for his first new opera production for Aix-en-Provence, the score is explored across its whole range of expression and never less than overwhelming on a deep emotional level. Rather than seek to illuminate or explain its mysteries, Kosky and Mäkelä suggest that Die Frau ohne Schatten is perhaps simpler in its meaning and message than the elaborate scenario suggests.

External links: ARTE Concert, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, La Scène Numérique du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence

Wagner - Rienzi (Bayreuth, 2026)

Richard Wagner - Rienzi (Bayreuth, 2026)

Bayreuther Festspiele, 2026

Nathalie Stutzmann, Alexandra Szemerédy, Magdolna Parditka, Andreas Schager, Gabriela Scherer, Andreas Bauer Kanabas, Jennifer Holloway, Michael Nagy, Vitalij Kowaljow, Matthias Stier, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Victoria Randem

BR-Klassik Livestream - 26th July 2026

First performed in 1842, Wagner's first serious opera Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen had never been performed before at the composer's theatre at Bayreuth. A five-act epic in the grand opera tradition, it was soon disavowed by the composer and never accepted as part of the Bayreuth canon. It has been performed infrequently elsewhere, but it is a challenge, the opera carrying a lot of historical baggage and notoriety as an opera that celebrates fascism and its association with the Third Reich. The idea that an opera can be fascist is clearly nonsense of course - it's all about how you choose to represent the rise and fall of a dictator on the stage. Some might choose to confront this legacy but another approach - surely equally as valid if it has any meaning or relevance at all (the jury may still be out on that one) - is to see the opera not defined by history, but what it means today.

The Bayreuth Festival has not been afraid to confront Wagner's history and some of the controversial elements in his works, but it has tended to shy away from making any overly political statements in recent years. Stefan Herheim's Parsifal at Bayreuth however viewed the composer's last great work in the context of German history, while the most recent challenge to the composer's legacy was Barry Kosky putting Wagner's antisemitism on trial in the 2017 Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Having never been performed before at Bayreuth however, the pressure on the directors to find a way of presenting this troublesome work are undoubtedly considerable, but just as important is validating the staging of the Rienzi at Bayreuth in its 150th anniversary year is also to come up with a meaningful approach that will address the question of why now?

It's immediately apparent that if the directors Alexandra Szemerédy and Magdolna Parditka are going to address the legacy of Rienzi, it is going to be through the lens of the present rather than through its Nazi associations or indeed its 14th century historical drama in Rome. The famous overture - one of the enduring qualities of the work - sets a scene across three rooms of a contemporary apartment block are occupied by Cola Rienzi, his sister Irene and a young sick child who we discover is Rienzi's brother Giovanni. 'Party Chairman' Rienzi is preparing a speech venerating German Art while Irene is looking after the sick child. The child dies and as the building rises out of the stage, the neighbouring apartments are seen sharing text messages suggesting an incestuous relationship between Rienzi and his sister, and that the child may have been born out of that relationship.

Act I's clashes between the Colonna and Orsini families here take the form of a heated election debate, with graphics showing election polls and projections, TV cameras broadcasting the election addresses and debates. Talk around Rienzi isn't the only scandal doing the rounds, as Stefano Colonna, an important industrialist, has recently been acquitted of the hit-and-run accident that has led to the death of Giovanni. Rienzi steps in to bring a measured response that strikes a chord with the public and the media, pledging loyalty to Irene and Adriano Colonna, the son of Stefano to serve the people.

Despite the overheated nature of the first Act - somewhat inevitable considering Wagner's dramatic score - its is relatively based in a familiar contemporary reality that soon breaks down, or at least shows a deeper more troubling undercurrent. Having been acclaimed Tribune of Rome, the dull grey and white of Act I is momentarily replaced with a new optimism and pride in the new Rome under the command of Rienzi. But as the sun breaks through the storm clouds in this production's Act II, in Rienzi's mind his dead brother appears as one of the divine Messengers of Peace descending staircase from heaven. Scenes for Rienzi’s reception or "coronation" take place in a Roman senate arrangement where after the failed Caesar-like assassination attempt and coup by Colonna, Rienzi takes on a Christ complex.

Despite the modern trappings - mobile phones held aloft at every move - the Bayreuth production nonetheless adheres closely to the dramatic action as it plays out in the libretto without too many revisionist touches, but also without managing to say anything new about what follows. The contemporary setting at least has a ring of familiarity to it as, for all the ruler's fine words, the real test comes when the 'nobili' - or businesses and wealth holders - rise up against him. Needless to say, Rienzi fails here and it's the ordinary people who pay the price of the cost of war, resulting in the people turning against him. Even though 'modernised', Rienzi resists modernisation, Act III remains every bit as over the top as the most extravagant of grand opera, the production failing to rein its excesses in at all.

Whether a director should even attempt to hold back on Rienzi or not is of course a matter of choice. Wagner scored the work to be a grand, epic statement, but it does risk losing sight of any purpose it might have, getting carried away in its own operatic grandiosity, with caricatures of noble sentiments and foul plots, all arch declamations, formal processions, marching battle-hymns and fervent solemn choruses. It's similarly easy for the audience to just get caught up in the grand sweep of it all to the extent that they ignore the troubling undercurrents of fascism, but at this kind of drawn-out length (even in its reduced form of just under 4 hours), it's also rather wearying.

Although I have seen it a few times, I'm not as familiar with Rienzi as other Wagner operas, but it does seem as if there has been some reordering done to make it flow a little easier. Rienzi sings his Act V aria 'Allmächt'ger Vater' before Act IV's discussion of excommunication (a fair portion of which is conducted through text messages in English), but otherwise under conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, it's the full-on Rienzi experience. Some other unique directorial touches are applied to Act V where Rienzi and Irene seem to consummate their relationship in some kind of death pact while Adriano looks on in shock. The only light touch - or heavy-handed touch maybe - is the use of the Act II ballet music to run through highly compressed scenes from all Wagner's subsequent mature operas, performed in am dram costumes, complete with intervals where the well-heeled audience queue for drinks and toilets.

To be honest, the ballet-theatre scene is indicative of the style of the acting and the direction throughout. There is a token attempt to explore the psychology or psychopathy of a dictator in a proposed invented incestuous relationship with sister and death of his brother (or 'brother’), which doesn't offer a great deal - although it is something of a Wagnerian trait. There is also at least some effort to engage with contemporary political events in the production - perhaps more so than any production at Bayreuth since Frank Castorf's Ring - setting the work in the context of a modern electoral campaign where the far-right are gaining popular votes. The epic grand conclusion that Wagner scores could only be justified when depicted as the eventual complete meltdown of the capitalist system, but it all just feels empty and meaningless after four hours at full tilt orchestration and booming choruses, and the work proves resistant to any attempt to inject an air of cautionary realism into it.

Vocally, aside from the chorus who have an important part to play in this work, much rests inevitably on Andreas Schager's performance as Rienzi and, as is often the case, it's a little over the top (as is the chorus, but in a good way). Certainly the role is written for grand declamation, but Schager doesn't seem to be able to bring it down to any level other than full-on forte that starts loud and gets increasingly strained over the four hours of the opera. The man is going to do himself an injury at this rate. Only when taking the 'Allmächt'ger Vater' aria - presumably placed in Act IV for breathing space - does he manage to show some restraint; in the singing at least; the 'acting' is reduced to lots of wild expressions and writhing around. Sure, the relentless pitch of the opera perhaps demands it, but Schager's performance doesn't make it any easier to relate to it. I liked Gabriela Scherer's performance as Irene, even though her role in the opera remains unfathomable in the psychodrama that is developed here with Rienzi and Adriano. Jennifer Holloway's Adriano is a heroic role that proves powerless to change the course of events; the soprano makes similarly a valiant effort all the way through, but is often overwhelmed by the bombast.

The current rise of the far-right in Germany is all the justification necessary to bring Rienzi to the stage at Bayreuth - let's just hope that the AfD don't adopt the overture for its rallies or history might repeat itself - but if that is indeed the target, it fails to make its mark and just confirms that Rienzi does not need to remain a regular fixture at Bayreuth. Despite the derivativeness of its sources though, it is an accomplished work, worth a look every now and again to admire not so much its sheer folly and ambition, but to see it as a necessary step towards the greatness that would follow from Richard Wagner. It's almost as if all the bad habits of operatic grand opera had to be expelled from the system in order to find his own true voice. This Rienzi is worth seeing, even if it's just to get over the curiosity about whether it really has any merit, and then you can put any such ideas about that aside for another while.

BR-Klassik Livestream, Bayreuther Festspiele