Bregenz Festival

“Tancredi”: a dusted-off plot, brilliantly performed

This year's house opera "Tancredi" by Gioachino Rossini was a complete success.(Bild: DIETMAR STIPLOVSEK / APA / picturedesk.com)

The festive audience enjoyed an all-round delightful experience of Rossini's tragic opera "Tancredi" at the Festspielhaus Bregenz.

Operas, it is said, are often outdated in the stories they tell, and so people venture to update them time and again. Rarely do these succeed, as the Seebühne production of "Der Freischütz" proves once again.

The director of the Bregenz House Opera and future director of the Volkstheater Vienna, Jan Philipp Gloger, managed to square the circle with his team and was completely convincing with his new interpretation of Rossini's opera "Tancredi". He relocated the crusader story to South America, where drug gangs are at war, where lawlessness and vigilante justice prevail and macho men have the upper hand.

The title character Tancredi, already a trouser role for a mezzo-soprano in Rossini's work, becomes a woman who has a secret lesbian relationship with Amenaide, the daughter of Argirio, a very rich drug lord. His swanky villa, equipped with a prison cell, a fitness room and a chapel, among other things, offers ever new insights on the revolving stage of the Bregenz Festival Theater. There is even a balcony to Julia's, sorry, Amenaide's bedroom. Because, as with the famous lovers in Verona, Tancredi's clan and Amenaides are enemies. However, Tancredi's violent death is not committed here because of this, but because in this macho world, love between two women is absolutely provocative. This very touching story does, however, have its longueurs, but we gladly endure them because the singing is incredibly beautiful. Melissa Petit as Amenaide - the Frenchwoman has already sung Micaela in "Carmen" and Gilda in "Rigoletto" in Bregenz - leads her beautiful soprano so effortlessly and cleanly over complex coloraturas to stratospheric heights that you could easily listen to her for another three hours.

The opera can still be seen on July 21 at 11 am and July 29 at 7.30 pm.(Bild: DIETMAR STIPLOVSEK / APA / picturedesk.com)

Her father Argirio is Antonio Siragusa, whose particularly timbred tenor is perfectly suited to this tough yet ultimately reformed character. He also fulfills the not insignificant demands of his role in terms of height and coloratura security breathtakingly well. His wife, adaptable and resolute at the same time, is Laura Polverelli, who is even allowed to introduce elements of humor in her aria. And last but not least, Anna Goryachova's portrayal of the title role should be mentioned. With her colorful and sonorous mezzo-soprano, she creates this complex character so soulfully that it brings tears to your eyes.

The men of the Prague Philharmonic Choir sing with precision, and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra plays wonderfully under the careful and sensitive conductor Yi-Chen Liu. You can hardly do opera better these days!