This Magic Moment – Mozart at the Bregenzer Festspielen 2013

© Bregenzer Festspiele/Karl Forster 

David Pountney’s fantastical, gigantical Zauberflöte is on display this summer (and next) on the stage in the lake at the Bregenzer Festpielen. There is a video on Arte Live Web, but apparently it’s only available to European viewers. It keeps telling me, very politely of course, “Sie haben keine Rechte...”

However, there’s always hope that someone will make it available to all via that video-sharing website or other pirate-y sources. But in the meantime, there are a handful of video clips to tease, titillate, or tick us off. Among the fine (double and triple) cast of singers is Rainer Trost as Tamino. The lovely and talented Ana Durlovski reprises her Queen of the Night, last seen in Baden Baden; she also appeared recently as our damaged sleepwalker im Stuttgart.

The main thing about the Bregenz Festival on the Seebühne  (lake-stage; some call it a floating stage, but in reality is it set on massive pilings. Actually for each new production, an entire new stage and set is built. I reviewed the DVD of their 2002 La Boheme back in the infancy of this blog) is spectacle. It's big, it's bright, it's brassy, it's showy; it's in the lake! The Bregenz production of Tosca was even featured in a James Bond film. 

Yes, there is usually very good music-making, though it's all electronically conveyed. The singers are all miked (necessarily) and the orchestra is...well we're not really sure where the orchestra is. But it sounds good on video!

Here is a news piece on the production:

And here is the amazing Ana Durlovski as die Königen der Nacht:

And here is a link to more YT search results for Die Zauberflöte bei den Bregenzer Festspielen 2013. Finally, there are some still photos over at the Arte Live Web Facebook page.