 
Heinrich Spängler
Helga Rabl-Stadler
Entführung
Masterpiece
Don Carlo
Peer Gynt
The concerts
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FRACTURE LINES OF AN EXISTENCE
On Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt
The “Great Hunchback”, a shady character between a figure from a saga and emotional projection, gave the young Peer Gynt a life motto which he adhered to: “A detour made!” He thus avoids painful confrontations, evades making decisions with serious consequences, loses a clear aim and finally every hold on life. His wish “Emperor, King I want to be!” is fulfilled only in a paradoxical way: the inmates of a lunatic asylum in Cairo proclaim him to be their ruler because of his egoism.
Failed existence
When Peer finally returns to Norway he has indeed become old but not yet mature. His motto remains unchanged, “There and back is the same path; out and in it’s the same bridge.” He is frequently confronted by strange figures which make him aware of his failed existence. When he is on the ship that brings him back a “strange passenger” involves him in conversation. Is he, because the crew does not see him, a messenger of death or a hallucination of the traveller returning home? The impressions from where Peer lived before become more intense and confused. Wild onions that he collects in a coppice become a cipher of his existence – lots of skins but no firm core. “The juice has gone, was there ever any inside?”
When he approaches his old wooden hut and hears his abandoned friend
Solveig singing there, he is overcome
with spontaneous remorse. And yet he flees once more from the meeting
he dreads. However, he is still troubled: faded leaves, the whistling
of the wind, drops of dew and broken stems plague his mind and appear
to him as reified reproaches, “We are thoughts, are we the thoughts
you had? – We are a motto; have you spoken us? We are songs, have
you sung us? – We are tears! Have you shed us? – We are deeds,
have you ordered us?”
Rudolf Hradil, Salzburg
from the Kuenburg Palace, 1986
Undecided
The button-maker, who wants to melt down Peer’s soul to make a
new cast, sums it all up: the indecisiveness of his existence, the constant
manoeuvring, his bland personality mean that no final verdict can be made
about him. Is there really no witness, who can confirm at least Peer’s
cowardice, his egoism, his atrocities?
“The Thin One”, a person wearing a priest’s cassock
and carrying a net to catch birds, which turns out to be a game of the
devil, can once more be fooled by Peer and led off the track. When Peer
again finds himself standing in front of Solveig’s hut, he finally
overcomes his lack of courage. “Round about, said the hunchback!
No, this time Peer, straight through the middle, even though the path
may be so difficult!”
However, the verdict proves to be the opposite of what was expected: “Here is a sinner! Speak your judgement!” – “Thank goodness! He has come home!” The demand “Cry out my crimes!” makes Solveig confess: “My life was a blessed song through you”.
When Peer clings to Solveig uttering the words, “Hold me in your soul!” and she sings him to sleep, cradled in her arms, the situation should not be reduced to a trivial middle-class happy ending. For the button-maker’s voice still resounds from behind the house: “We’ll see each other at the final crossroads, Peer, and then we’ll see what happens – I say nothing more”. The last message of the story, however, belongs to Solveig’s song at daybreak: “I rock you and I wake. Sleep and dream, my dear boy!”.
Oswald Panagl
Rudolf Hradil, Salzburg
from the Kapuzinerberg, 2000
Henrik Ibsen
Peer Gynt
New production
Stage director Johann Kresnik
Stage design Martin Zehetgruber
Costumes Heide Kastler
Lighting design Reinhard Traub
Dramaturgy Regina Guhl
Christoph Klimke
With
Thomas Thieme
Benjamin Höppner
Roland Renner
Wolfgang Michalek
Cornelia Kempers
Susanne Weckerle
and others
Perner Island, Hallein
Premiere
Friday 1 August 7.30 p.m.
Further performances
Saturday 2 August 7.30 p.m.
Sunday 3 August 7.30 p.m.
Tuesday 5 August 7.30 p.m.
Wednesday 6 August 7.30 p.m.
Friday 8 August 7.30 p.m.
Sunday 10 August 7.30 p.m.
Monday 11 August 7.30 p.m.
Wednesday 13 August 7.30 p.m.
Thursday 14 August 7.30 p.m.
Tickets are available from the Ticket Office
of the Salzburg Festival for the performances on
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 14 August in the following price categories:
€ 22 / 45 / 60 / 90
Shuttle bus to the Perner Island € 4
Telephone: 0043 662 8045-500
Telefax: 0043 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at