Bregenz Festival 2011 The complete programme in detail

André Chénier, the most famous work by the Italian composer Umberto Giordano, appealing both as a passionate love story and a historical thriller, will be performed at for the first time on the Seebühne stage in the summer of 2011 and 2012. The first in a series of new compositions to be performed at the Festspielhaus is the Achterbahn / Miss Fortune by the well-established British composer , whose work is showcased in summer 2011in a programme section entitled Creation.

Set against the background of the French Revolution, the opera André Chénier, premiered in 1896 at La Scala Milan, is a historical drama of brilliant clarity and a human tragedy of devastating intensity. The central figure is the French poet of that name, a historical figure who was caught up in the turmoil of the Revolution, at first as an enthusiastic supporter and then as a victim, mercilessly persecuted and ultimately sent to the guillotine. The premiere of the opera on the Seebühne is on 20 July 2011.

A young woman who meets with misfortune, blows of fate and unexpected flukes: the opera Achterbahn by Judith Weir is the first in a series of new to be performed at the Festspielhaus in summers to come. Achterbahn is a story about fate, a kind of parable about the ups and downs of life. Inspired by a Sicilian folk tale, the opera shows that we are often incapable of judging the various trials of life in the moment they occur. The premiere is on 21 July 2011.

Delusions and confused perceptions abound in this work which moves back and forth across the boundaries of dream and reality: Judith Weir's chamber opera . The production, guaranteed to haunt and fascinate audiences, will be staged at the Theater am Kornmarkt. Though it begins like a seemingly harmless fairy tale, the story turns into a disturbing psychodrama in which the boundaries between delusion and reality are increasingly blurred. The premiere is on 6 August 2011.

In the orchestral concerts this year the Bregenz Festival celebrates creators and the creative act. The musical focus is placed on a variety of creative individuals whose

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sensitive spirit, exuberant imagination and unique creativity have exercised a profound influence on the art, literature and music of past centuries. These individuals include Byron, Goethe, Shakespeare and Michelangelo as well as the contemporary composers who will be showcased at the festival in 2011 and 2012: Judith Weir and Detlev Glanert. Among the highlights are the two concerts to be given by the Hallé Orchestra under Sir Mark Elder. The Music & Poetry programme returns to the Seestudio following its great success last year.

In summer 2011, Deutsches Theater Berlin will put on two remarkable plays in Bregenz this summer – Gorky's Children of the Sun, highly praised by the critics, and Roland Schimmelpfennig's Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God in a production by the Austrian star director Martin Kušej. Not only that: it will also be bringing some big-name actors to the stage of the Kornmarkt Theatre: Nina Hoss, Maren Eggert, Norman Hacker, Ulrich Matthes and Sophie von Kessel. Another novelty will be the guest performances by the Vienna Schauspielhaus, which has made a name for itself in recent years as a workshop for young authors and contemporary dramatists. It will be performing the play Orphans - written in 2009 by the English playwright Dennis Kelly - at the Theater Kosmos.

What does singing have to do with frustration? What's the link between libido and creativity? And what becomes of our bodies in an increasingly technologised world? These questions will be explored by Art of our Times in 2011 in three events: a "complaints choir", the music theatre production entitled Home Work by François Sarhan, and As If Stranger, a multi-media performance by the American dancer Richard Siegal.

The crossculture programme offers young people an opportunity - not only during the festival - to experiment creatively together and find out what they enjoy and where their talents lie. The 2011 programme includes the old favourites crossculture night and the Children's Festival, as well as a return of crossculture week. The family concert The magical sound and the scoundrels shows how, with the help of music, you can overcome your biggest fears and use rhythm to keep that trembling knee under control.

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Opera on the Seebühne stage Ardent passion, breathtaking pace André Chénier by Umberto Giordano

André Chénier, the most famous work by the Italian composer Umberto Giordano, has huge appeal both as a passionate love story and a historical thriller. Based on the life of a historical figure from the French Revolution who was guillotined in 1794 during Robespierre's reign of terror, the opera will be performed at Bregenz for the first time on the Seebühne stage in the summer of 2011 and 2012. The premiere is on 20 July 2011.

Turmoil of the Revolution France in the year 1789. The aristocracy revels, the people groan. And between two stools stands the poet André Chénier. Cherished by the rich for his moving verses, in his heart he remains a revolutionary.

Set against the background of the French Revolution, the opera André Chénier, premiered in 1896 at La Scala Milan, is a historical drama of brilliant clarity and a human tragedy of devastating intensity, appealing both as a passionate love story and a historical thriller. The central figure is the French poet of that name, a historical figure who was caught up in the turmoil of the Revolution, at first as an enthusiastic supporter and then as a victim, mercilessly persecuted and ultimately sent to the guillotine for his opposition to the Jacobin reign of terror.

Persecuted by the revolution he supported At the start of the opera, the world of the 18th century still appears to be intact and enduring. The aristocracy dances; and the young poet André Chénier, although favouring the ideals of the new revolutionary movement, is a guest in the noble salons of the de Coigny family, whose daughter Maddalena he is passionately in love with. However, the political situation is tense and the first signs of revolutionary upheaval are already looming on the horizon: soon it will bring their carefree living to an end.

Five years later nobody is dancing any more. Paris trembles under Robespierre's regime, and the high-flown revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity have given place to cruel tyranny. Carlo Gérard, a former servant to the de Coigny family and Chénier's rival for Maddalena's affections, has risen to a leading position in revolutionary France,

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while the poet is persecuted for his criticism of Robespierre's reign of terror. And thus Chénier and Maddalena get caught up in the wheels of history, and all that remains of their liberty is their love – and with it the tragic decision to die together on the scaffold.

Music of stirring emotion Giordano's score is exuberant, ferocious and stirring, and the work culminates in a hymn to fraternity, love – and liberty in death. The composer incorporated historical dances and marches from the time before the French Revolution in the operatic score, along with classic revolutionary songs like "Ça ira" and the Marseillaise. Together with rousing arias and thrilling duets they lend a unique flavour to the opera.

Schirmer, Warner, Fielding, Cunningham In André Chénier the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Ulf Schirmer, who previously conducted the Seebühne production of and who is a co-initiator of and expert in the sound system specially developed for the Seebühne (known as BOA, Bregenz Open Acoustics). The opera will be directed by the Keith Warner, and the set has been designed by fellow Briton David Fielding. The costumes have been designed by the American Constance Hoffmann, and the lighting designer is Davy Cunningham. The premiere of André Chénier is on 20 July 2011.

"As though composed just for the Seebühne!" about André Chénier "It's as though André Chénier was composed specially for the Seebühne stage! The opera presents the perfect mix of ingredients for the venue: a thrilling story, music of great emotional intensity, and four strong characters caught between the extravagance of the Ancien Régime and the brutality of the French Revolution. At the centre of the action stands the poet André Chénier, a real historical character and a passionate and creative spirit who is devoted to his art but compelled by his conscience to place his hand in the hellfire of history. His adversary is Carlo Gérard, once a servant and now a revolutionary ringleader. And there's also the young noblewoman Maddalena, who is fleeing from the rebels, aided by her maidservant Bersi, who objectifies herself as a prostitute in order to support her mistress financially. Giordano's music is verismo of the very highest calibre and drives the high-voltage plot forward at a breathtaking pace."

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Opera at the Festspielhaus Keep calm and carry on! Achterbahn / Miss Fortune by Judith Weir

A young woman on the wheel of fortune, encountering cruel blows of fate and happy flukes: the first in a series of new compositions to be performed at the Festspielhaus is the opera Achterbahn (Miss Fortune) by Judith Weir, a co-production with the Royal Opera Covent Garden in London. The premiere is on 21 July 2011.

Achterbahn is the story of a young woman whose well-off family suddenly becomes poor. The girl resolves to make a living for herself, even though it means working her fingers to the bone. But every time her prospects appear to improve, bad luck strikes again. Later she makes the acquaintance of a personification of her own destiny, and her life finally takes a turn for better.

Equanimity and perseverance Judith Weir's opera is a story about fate, a sort of parable about the ups and downs of life – and how we are often incapable of judging the various trials of life in the moment they occur. Achterbahn was inspired by a Sicilian folk tale called Sfortuna. The opera shows that sometimes all efforts can prove fruitless and yet later turn out to have been advantageous after all. The story doesn't teach us patience so much as equanimity and perseverance, and counsels us not to lose heart at once in the face of supposed reversals. After all, you never know what's just round the corner.

The music director of Achterbahn is the British conductor Paul Daniel and the stage director is Chen Shi-Zheng, a Chinese-born director who lives in New York. The set design is by Briton Tom Pye, the costumes by the Chinese designer Han Feng, and the lighting by the American Scott Zielinski.

Idiosyncratic and accessible Judith Weir is one of the most interesting composers to come out of Great Britain in recent years. Her interest in folklore and folk music — from Scotland, where her parents come from, but also such diverse places as Iceland, India and China — has decisively influenced her very personal and original style. Many of Weir's stage works are based on fantastical and dreamlike folk tales because she has always had such a passion for storytelling.

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Weir's musical language is free of all modern clichés; it is idiosyncratic and accessible, entertaining and communicative. Her fine ear for melodies and effects and her remarkable ability to lend the simplest idea a fresh and unhackneyed sound, have led to her achieving genuine popularity among audiences and critics alike.

Judith Weir was born to Scottish parents in Cambridge (England) in 1954 and received her musical education there. Her first work for the stage, , was premiered in 1985. This has been followed by further "micro-operas", the three full- length operas A Night at the Chinese Opera, and Blond Eckbert, and most recently , a collaboration with Margaret Williams premiered on Channel Four in the United Kingdom.

Weir has also found international acclaim for her compositions for orchestra and chamber ensemble, including woman.life.song (2000), originally written for the Jessye Norman (to be performed in Bregenz on 20 August), and We are Shadows (1999) for the conductor Simon Rattle. Her most recent composition CONCRETE (2008) was enthusiastically received at last summer's Bregenz Festival: "After this impressive foretaste, appetites have no doubt been whetted for Achterbahn," commented the Austrian Press Agency.

Judith Weir about Achterbahn The original inspiration for my new opera was the tale Sfortuna ("bad luck") which a Sicilian woman named Agatuzza Messia told Giuseppe Pitrè, a doctor from Palermo and a celebrated chronicler of Sicilian culture in the 19th century. A version of the story can be also found in Italo Calvino's book of Italian folk tales Fiabe Italiane.

Sfortuna is the story of a young woman whose affluent family suddenly becomes poor. The girl resolves to make a living for herself, even though it means working her fingers to the bone. But every time her prospects appear to improve, bad luck strikes again. Later she makes the acquaintance of a personification of her own destiny, and her life finally takes a turn for better. At the end the girl is as well-off and happy as at the beginning.

The original story seemed remarkable to me for its realistic depictions of women at work, living alongside the world of the supernatural. Transposing the story into an opera set in contemporary times reveals more realism: a huge gap between rich and poor; a dark world of low-paid occupations in garment sweatshops, all-night food outlets and cleaning work; a grim

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acceptance of random events interpreted as bad luck and blows of fate. Irrational beliefs still prevail: in the salvation of gambling; wealth magically acquired, whether in the lottery or the financial markets; destiny, astrology and fortune-telling.

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Chamber opera at Kornmarkt Theatre The nightmare behind everyday life Blond Eckbert by Judith Weir

Delusions and confused perceptions abound in this work which moves back and forth across the boundaries of dream and reality: Judith Weir's chamber opera Blond Eckbert, based on a German Romantic tale. The production, guaranteed to haunt and fascinate spectators, opens at the Theater am Kornmarkt on 6 August.

"Do not think what I relate is a fairy tale..." Thus begins the novella Blond Eckbert written by Ludwig Tieck in 1797. Though it starts out like a seemingly harmless fairy tale, the story turns into a disturbing psychodrama in which the boundaries between delusion and reality are increasingly blurred.

Knight Eckbert lives with his wife in the solitude of the dark forests of the Harz mountains. One evening Eckbert's wife Berthe tells their friend Walther the story of her life, which no one has heard before. How come Walther knows the name of her dog when she herself can't remember it? And who is the old woman who finally tells Eckbert the truth about Berthe's life?

Poised between reason and delusion Blond Eckbert is a dark literary fairy tale about the nightmare lurking behind everyday life. The limits inherent in the retelling of this tale quickly become apparent: much more is intimated than stated. One century before depth psychology, Tieck's tale plays adroitly with moods, paranoid delusions and bewilderment.

The literary folk tales of the early Romantic period in Germany are ambiguous, intricately symbolic stories that oscillate between the levels of dream and reality. They are intended to bewilder and mislead, and to leave the reader in the dark for long stretches. By means of a distorted sense of time and space the various pieces of the plot are fitted together in a mosaic-like style. The bizarreness of the protagonists common to this genre is taken to grotesque extremes in the tales of Ludwig Tieck and E.T.A. Hoffmann.

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A musical roller coaster ride For Judith Weir, who adapted the tale for the opera stage in 1994, these considerations don't necessarily play a major role, however. She has composed a translucent score which captures the rustling of the forest and the birdsong: sensuous music that appears to illustrate the fairy tale even as listeners surmise the psychodrama lurking underneath. Swinging between horror and comedy, her musical world sends the audience on a musical roller coaster ride.

The characters, whose motives and actions are hard enough to fathom in Tieck's story, offer even less scope for interpretation or identification in Weir's retelling. Nature, on the other hand, almost seems to be a personification of a psychological state; and it is the only character not at odds with itself.

"Material for a psychoanalyst" Judith Weir's Blond Eckbert was premiered in 1994 at the in London, which commissioned it. The full-length work was trimmed down to a "pocket" version for performance at the Linbury Studios of the Royal Opera Covent Garden in 2006. The work has now established itself as one of the most successful contemporary operas of recent years.

"Blond Eckbert is a short story but one that's relatively dense in images and events," says Judith Weir. "At the same time, the sequence has something dreamlike about it: the characters swap their contours; one senses a hidden meaning but has trouble grasping it precisely. It all sounds as though it would make excellent material for a psychoanalyst!"

Synopsis: Blond Eckbert A bird describes the peaceful and reclusive life led by Eckbert and his wife Berthe. They have few visitors except for their friend Walther. Eckbert reflects on how nice it is to have friends you can share secrets with. One evening Eckbert asks Berthe to tell Walther the story of her youth. Berthe talks about her harsh childhood: her father regularly mistreats her, and finally out of desperation she runs away from home. After travelling for a long time, she meets a woman dressed in black, who gives her shelter in her home. The woman has a dog, whose name Berthe fails to remember, and a marvellous bird that lays gems for eggs.

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The years go by; Berthe grows up and wants to see something of the world. One day she runs away with the bird and the jewels, but sets the bird free when it starts to sing. She returns to the village where she was born to find her parents dead. She gets to know Eckbert and starts a new life with him thanks to the mysterious jewels.

When the tale is finished, Walther mentions the dog's name in passing. Berthe is astounded that he knows the name and thinks about it incessantly until she loses her reason. Eckbert kills Walther in fear over the secret betrayed.

After long wanderings Eckbert encounters the woman in black, who reveals to him the dreadful truth…

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Creators with skill, spirit and imagination Orchestral concerts in 2011

In the orchestral concerts this year the Bregenz Festival celebrates creators and the creative act. The musical focus is placed on a variety of creative individuals whose sensitive spirit, exuberant imagination and unique creativity have exercised a profound influence on the art, literature and music of past centuries. These individuals include Byron, Goethe, Shakespeare and Michelangelo as well as the contemporary composers who will be showcased at the festival in 2011 and 2012: Judith Weir and Detlev Glanert. Some of the performances will be part of the Music & Poetry programme at the Seestudio, which returns following its great success last year.

A musical picture-book of the world The Creation by Joseph Haydn The concert series opens with a work that is about the creation of the world itself, Haydn's famous oratorio The Creation, which is to be conducted by Christopher Moulds on 25 July.

Written between 1796 and 1798, Joseph Haydn's grand oratorio, composed for three soloists (soprano, and bass), four-part choir and large late-classical orchestra, describes the creation of the world as it is recounted in the Bible in the Book of Genesis (1st Book of Moses).

In England, Georg Friedrich Handel had been approached about composing an oratorio on the subject of the Creation and a text had been submitted to him which drew on the much admired epic Paradise Lost by English poet John Milton. Since Handel had not been interested in such a composition, many years later Joseph Haydn was approached. When he returned home in 1795 from his second stay in England, Haydn duly carried in his luggage an English text in which an anonymous author had spliced together passages from the Bible touching on the Creation and excerpts from the poem Paradise Lost. Back in Vienna, Haydn was asked by his friend and patron Gottfried van Swieten to compose an oratorio, and he decided to set the Creation story. Van Swieten translated the English original into German himself.

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For Joseph Haydn, working on The Creation proved to be a profound religious experience as he himself declared: "Never have I been so pious as during this composition. Every day I fell to my knees and besought God to give me strength for my work." It took three years to complete the oratorio – a hard time for Haydn, aware as he was of the magnitude of the task and of the high expectations people had of the outcome. He moreover set himself high standards: his work should bear comparison with the great oratorios of Georg Friedrich Handel. The first performance – an enormous success – took place in Vienna in March 1799; one year later Haydn's The Creation, translated back into English, was premiered at Covent Garden in London.

The cosmos and the small things The beauty and clarity of the musical language are trademark features of Haydn's compositions. On the one hand The Creation employs a symbolic idiom, and on the other hand it abounds in instrumental tone-painting which illustrates the sounds and phenomena of the natural world. The composer manages to embrace the whole universe as well as to suggest little things like the burbling of a brook, the delicate beauty of plants, the movements of various animals. "The Creation is a musical picture-book for big and small, in which the creation of the world, the stars and tides, the plants and animals, as well as the dignity of man in Paradise is depicted in a manner which it is no longer possible to duplicate" (Leopold Nowak, Haydn biographer).

Poet, ladykiller, freebooter Lord Byron concert On 1 August, Kyrill Petrenko conducts a concert to commemorate that most enigmatic of all creative spirits, Lord Byron. With his ebullient overture Le Corsaire (The Corsair) succeeds in effortlessly capturing the swashbuckling temperament and lifestyle of the poet (born in 1788), a man of great contradictions, who courted scandal and never ceased to arouse the interest of his contemporaries. Byron was regarded as a literary genius, but was also a notorious dandy and ladykiller. His life came to a premature end, at the age of 36, when he was fighting for the independence of Greece.

Berlioz composed his concert overture Le Corsaire during a holiday in Nice on the south coast of France. At its premiere in 1845, it still bore the title La Tour de Nice after the resort of which he was so fond. The overture received the definitive title of Le Corsaire in 1851, once Berlioz had thoroughly reworked it, strongly influenced by Byron's verse tale

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with the same title.

The concert comes to a sumptuously Romantic close with Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, which is inspired by Byron's dramatic poem. Manfred has an incestuous relationship with his half-sister Astarte; when their relationship becomes publicly known, Manfred flees to the Alps, grieving over parting with his cherished sister. Tchaikovsky's music describes the hero's anguish amid grandiose alpine tableaux.

The same concert offers a welcome chance to hear clarinettist Martin Fröst again, who gave an enchanting performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto at Bregenz in 2009. He will play Weber's Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra No. 1. The concerto will be preceded by Arnold Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon, composed in 1942, a setting of Byron's poem which is a ferocious indictment of all despotism.

Foretaste of Solaris Detlev Glanert concert A foretaste of the opera commissioned by the Bregenz Festival for 2012 will be offered in the coming summer. The third orchestral concert by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, on 7 August, presents music personally selected by German composer Detlev Glanert, whose next opera Solaris will be premiered at the Festspielhaus in 2012. Glanert has chosen works by his favourite composers Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss – the Piano Concert No. 2 and Also sprach Zarathustra. The concert, to be conducted by the Chinese conductor Xian Zhang, also features Glanert's Insomnium, which is a study for the opera Solaris.

Guest performances by the Hallé Orchestra Shakespeare & Michelangelo Among the highlights of the coming summer are the concerts to be given by the Hallé Orchestra of Great Britain under the baton of its electrifying chief conductor Sir Mark Elder (who conducted the opera King Roger at the Festspielhaus in 2009). Since taking over as music director of the renowned orchestra a decade ago, Elder has succeeded in putting the Hallé on the map internationally.

The Hallé Orchestra will give two concerts at the Festspielhaus on 15 and 16 August.

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Each concert has as its theme a towering figure of European art: firstly the Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet better known by his forename Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564) and secondly the English playwright, poet and actor William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

Michelangelo is the author of the poems which form the basis of one of Dmitri Shostakovich's most notable late works, the Suite on Verses by Michelangelo Buonarrotti for Bass and Orchestra. The rarely performed work was composed in 1974/75, the last year of the composer's life. It reveals a little known side of the Renaissance genius: the poet. The Suite on Verses by Michelangelo will be performed in the first Hallé concert on 15 August.

The second concert by the Hallé Orchestra, on 16 August, is devoted to Shakespeare the playwright. The programme presents Edward Elgar's exuberant symphonic poem , first performed in 1913. It is a study of Shakespeare's immortal comic figure, whom Elgar wanted to invest with greater psychological depth in his composition. An interesting fact is that Elgar's Falstaff was recorded on the very first gramophone record to be made at Abbey Road Studios in London (legendary for the association with the Beatles, who made their records there). The composer himself conducted the London Symphony Orchestra at the recording session, on 12 November 1931.

Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra Goethe & Weir Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is the focus of the concert at the Festspielhaus on 14 August, at which the Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Gérard Korsten. The concert begins with the turbulent machinations of The Sorcerer's Apprentice and ends with a prospect of salvation in Liszt's Faust Symphony.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the best known work by French composer Paul Dukas, is a symphonic poem inspired by Goethe's ballad. It tells the story of a sorcerer's apprentice who, without permission, uses a magic spell on a broom to get it to fetch water and fill a bath tub. The piece was popularised by the 1940 Walt Disney film Fantasia in which Micky Mouse plays the apprentice struggling desperately with the bewitched broom.

Liszt's Faust Symphony, composed for the unveiling of the memorial to Goethe and

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Schiller in Weimar 1857, consists of three movements, representing the three principal characters of Goethe's drama: Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles.

Two of Judith Weir's orchestral works will be presented at a concert at the Theater am Kornmarkt on 20 August. The young Briton Nicholas Collon will conduct Weir's Piano Concerto together with one of the composer's most entertaining pieces, woman.life.song, a composition about the stages in a woman's life. It was commissioned by the soprano Jessye Norman and features texts by Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, as well as Maya Angelou and Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

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A tightrope walk between idyll and abyss Drama 2011

Deutsches Theater Berlin will put on two remarkable plays in Bregenz this summer – Gorky's Children of the Sun, highly praised by the critics, and Roland Schimmelpfennig's Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God in a production by the Austrian star director Martin Kušej. Not only that: it will also be bringing some big-name actors to the stage of the Kornmarkt Theatre: Nina Hoss, Maren Eggert, Norman Hacker, Ulrich Matthes and Sophie von Kessel. Another novelty will be the guest performances by the Vienna Schauspielhaus, which has made a name for itself in recent years as a workshop for young authors and contemporary dramatists. It will be performing the play Orphans, written in 2009 by the English playwright Dennis Kelly.

All three works are concerned with survival: the spiritual survival of supposedly civilised people in the big cities of the world. They show how fragile our existence is in spite of modern sophistication; and how idyllic relationships can break down rapidly and apparently without reason.

In Children of the Sun, idealistic scientists work away at their research in the closed world of the ivory tower: their visions of the creation of a better world are in stark contrast to realities on the street, where influenza rages and the mob raise their fists. Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God presents two middle-class married couples at a friendly reunion. Their lives are thrown out of joint by the fate of an African orphan: civilised conversations about morality and responsibility, ignorance and impotence at once open up deep abysses of alienation. And in Orphans, a married couple's romantic candlelit dinner unexpectedly becomes a nightmare.

Dreaming of the better world Children of the Sun by Maxim Gorky Many characters come and go in the house of scientist Protassoff and his wife Yelena. There's the artist Vagin, who is in love with Yelena; the wealthy widow Melaniya, who in turn loves Protassoff; and the vet Chepurnoy, who has long admired Protassoff's sister Lisa. And finally there's the janitor Yegor, who does his job zealously, but drinks and beats his wife. All of the characters are in search of a fulfilled and meaningful life. How should people work and interact

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with one another if they are to feel something like meaning in their lives? They don't understand each other, are drifting away from each other, and fail in the daily business of living together. Neurotic, unhappy, egotistical and deeply comical, all of them have made little cocoons for themselves. Out on the streets, down among the ordinary people, no real revolt takes place. No utopia is in sight, and it looks as though things will continue as they are for quite some time. The premiere of Children of the Sun at the Theater am Kornmarkt in Bregenz is on 12 August 2011.

Maxim Gorky wrote the drama Children of the Sun in 1905 when imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. He was being held there because of his participation in protests against the massacre known as "Bloody Sunday". The gunning down of workers at a demonstration had inflamed public feeling and was to lead to the first Russian Revolution. Gorky set the play during a time of public unrest – the cholera epidemic of 1890 – and in the work there is a palpable sense of impending catastrophe, political and social. It paints a sombrely comical picture of a society so riven by social and cultural divisions that it is incapable of creating a better world.

Gulf of alienation Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God by Roland Schimmelpfennig In some city in the West: Carol and Martin have been invited to dinner by Liz and Frank. The two married couples know each other from when they worked together at a hospital after completing their medical studies, when they were close friends. Now they are meeting again after an interval of six years. In that time, Carol and Martin have worked as doctors under difficult conditions in a war zone in Africa, while Liz and Frank have stayed at home and now have money, a house and a child. The conversation circles round the subject of morality and responsibility, ignorance and powerlessness and about the orphaned child whom Carol and Martin left behind in Africa when they fled from a civil war.

The couples rapidly discover that they have little common ground, little comprehension for one another's experiences and little to tell one another. As the tension mounts in the course of the evening, Liz begins to have imaginary conversations with a plastic doll called Peggy Pickit and a carved wooden figure from Africa – a present from Carol and Martin – in order to establish some genuine connection between them all. Yet the gulf that has opened up between them seems to be unbridgeable. The premiere in Bregenz is on 17 August 2011.

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In the heart of violence Orphans by Dennis Kelly

Dennis Kelly's play Orphans – to be performed in German under the title "Waisen" – begins with an extreme image: Liam stands covered in blood in the dining room, where his sister Helen and her husband Danny are having a candlelit dinner. He claims to have been helping a young lad who had been injured in a stabbing. This is Liam's first version of the evening's events. But soon suspicions are aroused by contradictions in his account of what happened, and a complex psychological thriller begins in the course of which the boundaries between truth and lies, good and evil, love and hate get more and more blurred, and the intractable moral dilemma ultimately leads to destruction.

Orphans is in many ways a highly political play. In addition to topical political references to Abu Ghraib, Islamist terrorism and the rise of Islam and xenophobia, Kelly's play touches on social themes like the consequences of immigration, urban isolation, a culture of violence and our own moral impotence in the age of political correctness.

Above all the play illustrates the fact that politics begins in the smallest social unit, the family. Kelly offers a razor-sharp analysis of the erosion of solidarity in society and the return of what he calls "tribalism". Orphans shows how easily our fundamental moral values can be corrupted. It is a disturbing exploration of our fears and loyalties, which drive us to do what we should not.

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Lust and frustration, Triebe and Technology Art of our Times 2011

What does singing have to do with frustration? What's the link between libido and creativity? And what becomes of our bodies in an increasingly technologised world? These questions will be explored by Art of our Times in 2011 in three events: a "complaints choir", the music theatre production Home Work by François Sarhan, and As If Stranger, a multi-media performance by the American dancer Richard Siegal.

How frustration turns into song The Complaints Choir of Bregenz

"People spend a great deal of time complaining," say fellow Finns Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen. In Finnish there is even an expression for it: "valitus kuoro" – which means "a chorus of complaints" and describes a situation in which lots of people complain about something at the same time. This gave Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen an idea: wouldn't it be great to take the expression literally?! The Complaints Choir of Bregenz, composed of people from the Bregenz region and directed by Jorge Sanchez- Chiong, will perform on the plaza in front of the Festspielhaus on 23 July at 7.30 pm (or 25 July in the event of bad weather).

The two artists first put the idea into practice in Birmingham, England in 2005, establishing a Complaints Choir in just to weeks: "We simply wanted to convert negative energy into something great and collective, something funny and powerful." The result: an enormously enjoyable event, for the performers as much as for the listeners.

It was not long before the two artists were receiving requests to set up similar choirs all over the world. When word spread of their work via video postings on YouTube, they began to get mail from Hong Kong, Philadelphia, Göteborg, Buenos Aires and other places around the world, in which people complained that they had more grounds to complain than anyone else and badly needed a Complaints Choir of their own. Today, new complaints choirs are being established without the two artists getting involved, and the results are documented on a website specially created for them.

Lots of people around the world have demonstrated in the meantime that bellyaching

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releases pent-up creative energy, and that our day-to-day whingeing can actually give rise to something positive. People who otherwise have no opportunity to be heard, who have little voice in everyday life, get a chance to be loud and give vent to their grievances and gripes in public – and finally to get them off their chest! For more information, go to: www.complaintschoir.org

Jorge Sanchez-Chiong "Grandiose acoustic boulders", "virtuoso play of colours, "stirring", "compact", "hyper- fast" and "masterly" are some of the accolades in the German-language press for the work of the Cuban-Chinese composer and artist Jorge Sanchez-Chiong, whom Art of our Times has commissioned to compose and direct the complaints choir project.

Jorge Sánchez-Chiong was born in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, in 1969. Since 1988 he has lived and worked as a freelance artist in Vienna. His works, which are characterised by exuberance, spontaneity and improvisation, go beyond the confines of concert music and inhabit instead the realm of experimental theatre, video art, dance and electronic music. He generally collaborates closely with artists from various fields and styles.

Art of our Times – music theatre

How a hobby becomes an obsession Home Work by François Sarhan

What is the motor that drives our creative instincts? What connection exists between libido and the creative process? What happens when an interest becomes an obsession: when we get so much joy out of a particular project or hobby that we can't stop doing it? How does something like that happen?

These questions lie at the heart of Home Work, the latest piece of music theatre by François Sarhan, which will be performed on 29 and 31 July at the Werkstattbühne. Sarhan is a prolific and rather unorthodox French composer whose work has recently aroused great interest internationally. The new composition has been commissioned by Art of our Times and will be performed by the Belgian Ictus Ensemble and various other guests.

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Home Work is the story of the three people: one of them is building a mechanical toy, another is a hobby gourmet who is preparing a tasty delicacy, and the third is awaiting the arrival of the woman he loves for a very special rendezvous. However, the three people's plans and actions are frustrated when their stories somehow get tangled up, exposing the true motives of the protagonists.

During the performance, members of the audience will move across the stage, experiencing the production from various different angles and thereby discovering bit by bit the secrets of the dramatic characters. François Sarhan's new piece is a bizarre, surreal and engaging experience which proves that contemporary music theatre can be both witty and entertaining.

Who is François Sarhan? François Sarhan was born in 1972. From 1985 to 1993 he studied cello at the Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt, aesthetics and music history (until 1994) and subsequently analysis and composition (1996-2000) at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. He studied under such highly regarded composers as Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey and Magnus Lindberg, Tristan Murail and Marco Stroppa; and completed his studies with first prize. In addition he completed a course in electronic music and computer composition at IRCAM and a seminar in poetics with Jacques Roubaud at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris from 1997 to 2001. Sarhan has won several international prizes, including the Radiophonic Sound Poetry prize at Bruxelles-Maïs in 2003.

His works have been performed at festivals in the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. Since 2000 he has directed the vocal-instrumental ensemble CRWTH which has specialised in performances and multimedia projects. He taught counterpoint, harmony and rhythm at IRCAM from 1998 to 2002 and has lectured in composition and analysis at the Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg since 1999. His book, Histoire de la Musique, was published by Editions Flamarion in 2002.

Since completing his highly successful and traditional education, François Sarhan has increasingly moved away from the contemporary serious music scene and has focused instead on developing small-scale pieces of music theatre and performances with surrealist traits. In collaboration with William Kentridge and the Ictus ensemble he

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created the show Telegrams from the Nose which has been presented more than 30 times at festivals all over Europe. His collaboration with the artist Kentridge encouraged Sarhan to follow his instinctive impulse and to go his own way between music, theatre and the visual arts. Today he works as a performer, composer, stage director and visual artist in an artistic universe he himself created. The website http://www.fsarhan.net and various videos on You Tube give an impression of the curious and humorous world of François Sarhan.

Art of our Times – dance

How technology inspires dance As If Stranger by Richard Siegal In his work As If Stranger, Richard Siegal enters a dark and turbulent world. The most acute of dancers, he moves like a leaf in a powerful and contrary wind. Smart and imaginative, he loses himself in this rotating void which he has created for himself with the help of electronic devices, cables and plugs. New York Times

The gentle movements of the hands, magnified many times in the video projection, become an enigmatic moving game rather like a picture puzzle. The fingers could be two entwined bodies or, equally, an abstract object. One's own body – a stranger? The familiar environment – now indecipherable? The multiple-award-winning dancer Richard Siegal was for many years a soloist in the Forsythe Company in Frankfurt. In 2002 he founded the organization The Bakery, a meeting place for creative people from medial art and other fields.

As If Stranger, to be performed at the Werkstattbühne on 5 and 6 August, is the third part of his "Stranger" trilogy in which he explores the relationship between us and our bodies in the context of the new, high-tech world. The dancing body is cast into the bleakness of a technologised space; with its movements it initiates a pas de deux between the body and the technology. The question of who controls what – does the body control the technology or vice versa? – accompanies the audience throughout this intermedia performance.

As If Stranger won a Bessie Award in New York in 2008, after part two of the trilogy had won a Mouson Award in Frankfurt the previous year. At the Bregenz Festival, Richard Siegal will present a new version for which he has paired up with the internationally recognized dancer

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Julie Guibert.

Art of our Times concerts Creativity occasionally means extreme individuality: and individual experience is the conceptual starting point for the concert series Art of our Times in the coming summer.

The Belgian ensemble Ictus will be making its first appearance in Bregenz with The Wayward by the American composer Harry Partch. He was famous for constantly inventing new instruments. The Wayward is scored for voice and "transformed instruments" – including 12-string guitar, banjo, zither, Chicago harmonium, microtonal piano, and percussion. Partch lived during the Great Depression of the 1930s as a hobo and migrant worker. He travelled around on trains and chronicled his experiences in a musical diary from which The Wayward was subsequently drawn.

The phenomenal pianist Marino Formenti, who gave an unforgettable performance on all floors of the in a previous series of Art of our Times, returns to Bregenz with a very special new programme. Further details can be found in our Art of our Times brochure which will be published in April.

In the year to come there will be concerts in the Kunsthaus Bregenz again by Wiener Concert-Verein and oenm. The latter ensemble, directed by Titus Engel, will present a new work by the Austrian composer Bernhard Gander, commissioned by Art of our Times. Full information on the date, venue and programme of this concert will appear in spring in the Art of our Times brochure and on our website!

THE COMPLETE PROGRAMME OF ART OF OUR TIMES 2011 WILL BE PUBLISHED IN SPRING 2011!

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Magic sounds, tragic poets crossculture 2011

Alongside the traditional fixtures like the Children's Festival, crossculture night, crossculture week, guided tours and workshops there is also a series of concerts for families and school groups entitled The magical sound and the scoundrels. These show how, with the help of music, you can overcome your biggest fears and how you can keep your trembling knee under control with a little rhythm.

crossculture concerts for families and schools The magical sound and the scoundrels The scoundrels are in a fix. And to make matters worse, they have an important job to do. How do you overcome your biggest fear? Fear, friendship and testing your own limits, plus a little magic – that's what the show The magical sound and the scoundrels is all about. And along the way the musicians and audience also discover that some difficult situations become easier thanks to music – because with the right rhythm, it isn't so hard to bring your trembling knee under control. In rhythm lies that magic which always helps when problems need to be solved. 5 to 7 July – 9.00 and 10.30 am; family performance: 8 July – 5 pm, Theater Kosmos crossculture for children

Children's festival: Fedeki's Creation Hotel Before the adults put on the premiere of the opera André Chénier on the Seebühne stage, our youngest festival friends are invited to put together their own musical with the title Fedeki's Creation Hotel. In a week-long festival, children aged from 6 to 11 take part in various workshops to create everything they need for a show of their own: they paint stage scenery, assemble props, practise singing and rehearse dances… The excitement mounts towards the end as the opening night before a real audience draws near! 11 to 16 July – 9 am to pm, Weidach School

crossculture for young people crossculture night The big summer event in the open air for school-pupils and students aged from 14 to 26. Before attending a performance of André Chénier, young people are invited that

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afternoon to the Festspielhaus where they can take part in workshops about the opera and the French Revolution. On top of that there are guided tours, sound and stage checks and introductions to the works. And people who prefer being outside can enjoy the show on the open-air stage on the plaza in front of the Festspielhaus. 16 July – from 2 pm, Seebühne / Festspielhaus

crossculture week Spontaneity, enjoying music and a passion for making it. Band workshops (singing, guitar, piano, bass, drums) will be offered by musicians from Simon Kräutler & The Gang. The rehearsal room will become a musical workshop for young people aged from 14 to 20 who would like to improve their ability to play together and also to work on their stage presence. Participants will also learn about acoustics, lighting and songwriting. The week of music ends with an open jam session and a performance as part of crossculture night. 11 to 16 July – 10.30 am to 5.30 pm, Theater Kosmos

crossculture workshops Revelry and decadence in the palaces, while the streets seethe with popular discontent – France in the year 1789. In the turmoil of the French Revolution, the poet André Chénier starts out as an ardent supporter and ends as a mercilessly persecuted victim of the revolution. The opera André Chénier by the Italian composer Umberto Giordano is a historical thriller combined with a passionate, dramatic tale of love. The crossculture workshops offer participants the chance to get a feel for the historical events and to work out their own way of staging the scenes. This "Opernschlüssel" workshop is ideally combinable with a guided tour. 27 June to 7 July – 8.00, 9.00, 10.30, 11.30 am 1 and 2 pm, Festspielhaus Further dates on request

crossculture tours Guided tours behind the scenes (free of charge for school groups, youth groups and for children aged 10 and younger) reveal the artistic and technical secrets of the Seebühne stage. The tours can be conveniently combined with a crossculture workshop.

17 June to 21 August, Seebühne/Festspielhaus

© Babette Karner 2010 / translation: Giles Shephard

The Bregenz Festival 2011 runs from 20 July to 21 August 2011. For tickets and information, call +43 (0)5574 407-6 or visit www.bregenzerfestspiele.com.

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