Culture

Mozart Week presents L’Orfeo with wood and heart

Villazón makes the puppets dance at the Mozart Week.

(Bild: Werner Kmetitsch)

Let the Mozart Week begin! The stars of the festival's opera production at the Haus für Mozart are life-size puppets alongside Rolando Villazón.

From the Elbe to the Salzach: With L'Orfeo, composer Claudio Monteverdi laid the foundation for musical theater as we know it today 400 years ago. In 2023, director Nikolaus Habjan took on the work in Dresden, which was first performed in Mantua in 1607, and placed life-size puppets alongside the ensemble of singers. A directorial idea that delighted audiences and critics alike at the Semperoper. This was not the only reason why the artistic director of the Mozartwoche, Rolando Villazón, who sang the title role at the time, was keen to bring the production to his festival.

The opera is advertised by the International Mozarteum Foundation as a "new production based on the Semperoper's production of L'Orfeo". However, the new features in Salzburg are primarily due to the size of the stage and the technology of the house for Mozart. As Habjan revealed in advance in the Mozarteum Foundation podcast, he was quite satisfied with his original production and stage in Dresden. This meant, for example, that a fabric curtain had to be procured, as the Haus für Mozart, unlike the Semperoper, has what is known as an iron curtain, but the fabric plays a key role in the production. Habjan, who was born in Graz, compares the other innovations to working on a suit that is precisely tailored to the wearer. Small, but with a big effect.

Adding a soul to the voice

The puppets designed by Habjan himself, which represent the main characters alongside the singers, remain unchanged. The biggest fan of these man-sized figures is the Mozartwochen director himself. "This puppet brings something into my heart. I think that also spills over to the audience and makes the story even more touching," says Villazón in the interview. Although his puppet alter ego is mainly moved by a professional puppeteer, the Mexican tenor is also involved in guiding the wooden figure, which he says he gives his soul as well as his voice.

Even more knowledge about a 2000-year-old myth

Conductor Christina Pluhar is really new on board. She describes Villazón as an absolute dream candidate on the podium. The two have already performed L'Orfeo together, but never in a staged production, which was still on Villazón's wish list, so to speak, and is now becoming a reality.

L'Orfeo by Monteverdi

(Bild: Werner Kmetitsch)

He used the one-and-a-half year break between Dresden and Salzburg to gain even more knowledge about the 2000-year-old myth and the music. The most influential piece of literature for him was a book by conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who said that Mozart would be inconceivable without Monteverdi. "You are a new artist every year. This time I am singing Orfeo with many new experiences, for example with the madrigals by Monteverdi, which I have sung in the meantime. This brings new layers to the role, and I also feel very comfortable with Christina Pluhar's interpretation," Villazón remarks. He continues: "I'm delighted and I'm so happy to be on stage with my Orfeo puppet once again."

It moves in with director Nikolaus Habjan after the three performances at the Mozart Week. "I now handle it in such a way that the puppets return to my possession after the production has finished so that they don't end up in someone's collection or as rehearsal props. Some are then rebuilt, but Orfeo certainly isn't. I like him too much, and as the opera always plans well in advance, I already know that he will be busy for the next two years," adds the puppet father with a wink.  Larissa Schütz