The Bayerische Staatsoper’s 2017-18 season is brought together under the title “Zeig mir deine Wunde” (Show me your wound), with new productions of operas dealing, to varying degrees, with wounds and pain – physical, psychological or both.
No opera sums that up better than Parsifal, which opens the Münchner Opernfestpiele, the house’s month-long summer festival, on 28 June. Pierre Audi directs, but most will be drawn by the prospect of Kirill Petrenko conducting the sort of super-stellar cast that only Munich seems to be able to assemble these days. Local boys Jonas Kaufmann and Christian Gerhaher lead the charge as Parsifal and Amfortas; they are joined by René Pape (Gurnemanz), Nina Stemme (Kundry) and Wolfgang Koch (Klingsor).
Gerhaher features earlier in the season as the Count in Christof Loy’s new Le nozze di Figaro (opening on 26 October), in a cast that also includes Alex Esposito as Figaro, Anett Fritsch as Cherubino and Federica Lombardi as the Countess. Constantinos Carydis conducts.
In terms of staging, the most interesting prospect might well be that of Frank Castorf, on the back of his well-received Faust in Stuttgart, turning his hand to Janaček’s From the House of the Dead (21 May), with Simone Young conducting a strong ensemble cast.
The remaining new productions are entrusted to a newer generation of directors. The Berlin-born film director Axel Rainisch will stage Haydn’s Orlando Paladino at the Prinzregententheater, Munich’s intimate answer to Bayreuth’s Festpielhaus. The production opens towards the end of the Festival, on 23 July, and will be conducted by Ivor Bolton.
Antú Romero Nunes tackles Verdi’s Les Vêpres Siciliennes (11 March) with a leading quartet consisting of Carmen Giannattasio (Hélène), Bryan Hymel (Henri), George Petean (Guy de Montfort) and Erwin Schrott (Procida). Omer Meir Wellber conducts what will be an intriguing prospect for Verdians, although the lack of a choreographer credit leaves open the question as to whether or not this grand opéra’s ballet music will be included.
Dutch director Lotte de Beer presides over a staging of Il trittico with casts led by Eva-Maria Westbroek and Yonghoon Lee as Giorgetta and Luigi, Ermonela Jaho and Michaela Schuster as Suor Angelica and the Zia Principessa, and Ambrogio Maestri and Rosa Feola as Gianni Schicchi and Lauretta. Many will also be drawn by the prospect of hearing Petrenko turn his hand to Puccini’s masterly tri-partite score.
Munich’s special combination of a broad repertory system and a generous casting budget always makes for rich picking among revivals. And the 2017-18 season is no exception, with over 30 further other operas on the well-filled Spielplan. Wagnerians will immediately want to pencil in one of the three Ring cycles (in Andreas Kriegenburg’s 2012-13 staging) with Petrenko at the helm. Two of them are in January, one during the Festival, when Kaufmann will step in as Siegmund to sprinkle some extra stardust on an already stellar cast.