"The Player"

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Tenor Sean Panikkar was not at all enthusiastic at first. Asmik Grigorian performs at his side.(Bild: © Neumayr/Christian Leopold)

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev's "The Gambler" celebrates its premiere at the Salzburg Festival on August 12. Director Peter Sellars wants to conjure up light fare from this heavy piece of opera.

Prokofiev's "The Gambler" is the first opera for which a work by Dostoyevsky has ever been adapted for the genre and one that has a lot to offer. After several postponements, the work was finally premiered in 1929 and has lost none of its topicality - or its gravity.

This summer, the Salzburg Festival has engaged director Peter Sellars for the mammoth work, who apparently holds the key to lightness, as tenor Sean Panikkar revealed during the talk on the Festival Terrace before the premiere. "I hated the work at first. I thought it made no sense, but I would do anything for Peter. After the first complete run-through at the rehearsal, I was able to see the work through Peter's eyes and suddenly I could understand it and even learn to love it," said the tenor, who sings the lead role and, according to Sellars, is the man to call when you have a role that nobody seems to be able to perform.

Sellars himself is particularly attracted by the topicality of the material. The action takes place in a casino, where different people meet and confront each other. Above all, however, it is about the greed for quick profits and quick success in a society made up of angry characters who do not hide their anger at the establishment. "We see a generation like that today, people who say 'no'," says Sellars.

Not only is the material difficult, but so are the roles. At the time, Prokofiev was accused of having composed unsingable roles and ultimately made changes. However, this does not seem to apply to star soprano and Salzburg favorite Asmik Grigorian. "Polina is probably the easiest role in my current repertoire. Nevertheless, I imagined it would be easier. The biggest problem for Polina is the struggle with herself and I can understand that, because I've always tried to find myself and still do today," says Grigorian.

Whether the role really comes so easily to her will be revealed at the premiere on August 12. The two-hour work will be performed without an intermission at the Felsenreitschule - in a place that is virtually sacred to Peter Sellars, where, according to the director, they are not staging a show but a ceremony. For Asmik Grigorian, on the other hand, Salzburg itself seems to be the source of enlightenment, as she revealed at the end of the talk: "The love that I encounter here keeps me coming back every time. And I think to myself every year that if I can make it to Salzburg, I can make it through the rest of the year."