Festival: Wiener Festwochen

Michael Hanekes letztjährigen Madrider Sensationserfolg stieß in Wien auf einhellige  Begeisterung. Tatsächlich und ganz ohne Ironie: Was man zu sehen bekam, war der Inbegriff des vielstrapazierten Vergleichs vom großen Kino.

Il Trovatore has doggedly survived in opera’s hit charts despite dispensing generous quantities of hair-raising as well as eyebrow-raising content. Verdi’s music is intoxicating, of course, but there is something to this work that makes it accessible beyond reasoning.

A first impression of Quartett, a 2011 chamber opera composed by Luca Francesconi and staged by Àlex Ollé (of the innovative Catalan theatre group La Fura dels Baus), may be that it presents an unapologetically modernist take on the Liaisons dangereuses story which will impenetrably hang together as some fearsomely Teutonic total artwork.