Salzburg Festival

Weinberg’s “The Idiot”: This is how great opera works!

Bogdan Volkov as the magnificent "Idiot"

(Bild: Salzburger Festspiele / Bernd Uhlig)

Unanimous acclaim for a rarity at the Felsenreitschule: the Festival showcases the masterpiece qualities of Mieczysław Weinberg's "The Idiot" in exemplary fashion.

The outsider Prince Myshkin has made it his life's work to understand people. His frightening kindness and irrepressible will to pity irritates his fellow human beings so much that they label him an "idiot". Mieczysław Weinberg immortalized Dostoyevsky's anti-hero in his last opera, composed in 1986/87. Over the last few decades, the works of Weinberg, a friend and contemporary of Shostakovich, have gradually been discovered.

It was only after his death in 2013 that "The Idiot" was given its first full performance. With the current new production, the Salzburg Festival has now set what is probably the most important milestone in its recent reception history. The grandiose performance reveals this opera in all its grandeur as a masterpiece.

Bogdan Volkov (Myshkin) and Ausrine Stundyte (Natasya)

(Bild: copyright: Bernd Uhlig,Warthestrasse 70, D-12051 Berlin Konto ING Bank IBAN: DE88 5001 0517 5433 7821 50)

This is due in particular to tenor Bogdan Volkov, who comes close to the title character in an almost frightening way and delivers a tremendously moving and subtle character study, both vocally and dramatically. He is surrounded by an ensemble of fantastic singing actors, including Vladislav Sulimsky (Rogozhin), Xenia Puskarz Thomas (Aglaja), Iurii Samoilov (Lebedev), Margarita Nekrasova (Yelizaveta) and Pavol Breslik (Ganja). Only Ausrine Stundyte dances out of line here as the central female character Nastasya with her very harsh and unsteady-sounding soprano.

But this remains a marginal issue, as Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, making her debut with the magnificent Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, succeeds in creating a true miracle of sensual sound work full of detail and tension from the rather dark and gloomy score. This was then combined with Krzysztof Warlikowski's very precise and coherent staging in Małgorzata Szczęśniak's congenial design to create a captivating and truly great evening of opera. Even the premiere audience could only cheer loudly and unanimously.