Boy meets girl
Jürgen Flimm talks about King Arthur, Baroque theatre with beamers and about his teacher Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Posterity is confronted with a puzzle: how can this piece really be defined, this sparkling, multi-coloured hybrid, Henry Purcell and John Dryden’s King Arthur, first performed in 1691? Is it an opera or an operetta? A drama with extensive musical interludes or indeed an early form of musical? The questions do not become fewer, if we consider the action. Some regard the love story between Arthur and Emmeline as being of central importance, for others it is the historical conflict between the Angles and Saxons. King Arthur was frequently interpreted as a national myth, on the other hand it was seen as a satirical “anti-war piece”. Jürgen Flimm, who is staging Purcell’s and Dryden’s masterpiece for the opening of the Salzburg Festival has found his own approach: “I was always interested most of all by the question ‘boy meets girl’. The marvellous Boy Gobert once said that the most beautiful plays are those in which two people love each other but do not get each other. In this case they get each other but are greatly endangered. The love story between the girl who is initially blind and the king is the heart of the matter. I liked the two from the moment when I first read the piece. They are wonderfully cast with Michael Maertens and Sylvie Rohrer”.
Ten actors, five singers in solo roles and 40 members of the chorus make up the ensemble of King Arthur. There is a clash here between stage worlds. “What makes it so fascinating is the mixture of genres but this also presents the greatest problems”, says Jürgen Flimm. “It is so important to find the right rhythm between drama and music, the right metre. There should be no drop in the effect of any of the levels so that the audience thinks, ‘oh dear, here come the actors or this singing again’”. Flimm considers it to be a myth that fewer demands can be made of singers than of actors when staging a work. “A lot has changed over the past few decades. Singers are very open-minded, willing and disciplined; penetrating the intellectual depths of a work is more in the line of the actors. Both groups bring in their own initiative and ideas, in that respect there’s no difference”.
Jürgen Flimm intends to evoke the world of Baroque theatre with means of the 21st century. “We are using very many projectors and have some marvellous software. We intend to present a great magical theatre. The stage area in the Felsenreitschule depicts an island, Britannia, ‘the fairest isle’. The orchestra is seated in the middle of the stage but lowered; I want people to be able to see the musicians and for them to be part of the theatrical moment.” Unlike some recent productions of King Arthur, John Dryden’s original drama will be performed in Salzburg and not a new version. “It’s a wonderful text”, says Jürgen Flimm, justifying the decision. “This is a problem in current theatrical practice. People are always mistrustful and think they have to write something new. But they are no better. Why do they have to re-write the plays? That’s something I’ve never understood.”
Così fan tutte
Jürgen Flimm considers himself very lucky in being able to work together with the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who is interpreting the score with his Concentus Musicus Wien. “Nikolaus Harnoncourt is my teacher,” enthuses Flimm. “He always teaches me something, on every production. When I worked with him for the first time, in 1990 on Mozart’s Così fan tutte in Amsterdam, I was still very green in this metier. It was only the third time I had staged opera. It was incredible and marvellous how he guided me through the work, rather like a scout. The mind of a stage director has many rooms and right in the middle there is a great hall full of music. Nikolaus opened this up to me for the first time in every detail. Whenever I ask him something, when I want to know something about the treatment of the trumpet in Mozart, I always get a lecture but it is excellent: about the function of the trumpeter, about the signal trumpeter, what that meant and where it came from. That is paradise for me. On the other hand he seems to like me because as a director of opera I have, in his presence, absorbed the principle of prima la musica.”
Susanne Stähr
Henry Purcell
KING ARTHUR
New production
Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt · Stage director Jürgen Flimm · Stage and video Klaus Kretschmer · Costumes Birgit Hutter · Choreography Catharina Lühr · Chorus master Rupert Huber · Dramaturge Susanne Stähr
King Arthur Michael Maertens • Oswald Dietmar König • Merlin Christoph Bantzer • Osmond Roland Renner • Emmeline Sylvie Rohrer • Matilda Ulli Maier • Philidel Alexandra Henkel • Grimbald Werner Wölbern • Soprano Barbara Bonney · Isabel Rey • Contralto Birgit Remmert • Tenor Michael Schade • Bass Oliver Widmer
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus • Concentus Musicus Wien
Premiere 24 July, 7 p.m.
Further performances
26 and 28 July, 7 p.m.
1, 3 and 5 August, 7 p.m.
7 August, 6 p.m.
22 August, 3 p.m.
23 August, 7 p.m.
25 August, 6 p.m.
Felsenreitschule
Telephone +43 (0) 662 8045-500
Telefax +43 (0) 662 8045-555
info@salzburgfestival.at