The Herrmanns
A dream couple on and off stage
For over 20 years Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann have been a “dream couple” for staging and designing operas. What began in Brussels under Gerard Mortier continued without interruption during Mortier’s ten years in Salzburg whereby Mozart played an important role. The Herrmanns have staged all his so-called “great” operas, in some cases even in several versions, apart from Le nozze di Figaro, which Ursel Herrmann freely admits is an opera she does not really warm to.
Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann
The premiere of their production of Così fan tutte opened the Easter Festival and now it is returning in the summer as a co-production with a completely new cast apart from Thomas Allen as Don Alfonso. New singers for the roles certainly determine changes in details, especially as Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann always have a very character-specific way of working. “Our Despina, Helen Donath, will certainly have to have a different costume from the one worn by Barbara Bonney at Easter,” says Ursel Herrmann.
Così fan tutte was an opera that Ursel Herrmann long avoided. “I could not bear the fact that two lovers go away, stick on a false beard, then return and the women are so stupid and have absolutely no idea who is standing in front of them.” She finally found the solution by staging a game: the girls eavesdrop on the bet, in other words they know what they are letting themselves in for. What they do not know is how far their emotions will drive them on in their game. The School of Lovers (as Mozart’s dramma giocoso is called in the sub-title) also becomes a school of deceptions, ultimately a school of life and of recognition. On what is almost an empty, huge and yet intimate stage (this is the first time that Così fan tutte has ever been performed in the Grosses Festspielhaus) where there are only a few symbolic props and where atmosphere and space are created primarily by light, Ursel and Karl-Ernst Herrmann evolve this story ingeniously and with psychological precision.
The game becomes serious. Così fan tutte is not a coquettish comedy, not an “idealised” didactic play but “perhaps Mozart’s most realistic opera”. It is an opera about growing up, about a bold way of experimenting with desire and trying out something new in life but with no safety net. It is a path that leads through dangerous terrain, upsets the balance of emotions and ultimately emerges into life.
Karl Harb
Così fan tutte
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
COSì FAN TUTTE
New production
Conductor Philippe Jordan • Stage directors Ursel und Karl-Ernst Herrmann • Stage and costume design Karl-Ernst Herrmann • Chorus master Rupert Huber
Fiordiligi Tamar Iveri • Dorabella Elina Garanca • Despina Helen Donath • Ferrando Ramón Vargas • Guglielmo Nicola Ulivieri • Don Alfonso Thomas Allen
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus
Vienna Philharmonic
Premiere 30 July, 7 p.m.
Further performances 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25 and 29 August, 7 p.m.
Grosses Festspielhaus
Telephone +43 (0) 662 8045-500
Telefax +43 (0) 662 8045-555
info@salzburgfestival.at