Press release: Opera festival premiere "Die Teufel von Loudun" on 27 June 2022 // More news from the Bayerische Staatsoper

FESTIVAL PREMIERE " DIE TEUFEL VON LOUDUN" ON 27 JUNE 2022
Krzysztof Penderecki's Die Teufel von Loudun premieres on Monday, 27 June 2022, 7 pm (CEST), opening this year's Munich Opera Festival.
 
Sinful fantasies of a nun, lewd debauchery of a priest, envy and jealousy of bigoted petty bourgeois - and above all the political master plan of an ambitious churchman. The New Production on the composition by Penderecki is under the Musical Direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski. Simon Stone directs. Ausrine Stundyte debut as Jeanne and Wolfgang Koch as Grandier.
 
For the New Production of Die Teufel von Loudun, the Bayerische Staatsoper releases, in addition to press material, the so-called Teufel. Files, the podcasts HOW TO OPER and Audiofeature, a new episode of the video format Observations.
The premiere performance on Monday, 27 June 2022, 7 pm (CEST), is broadcast in a live-stream on STAATSOPER. TV, BR-KLASSIK Concert as well as on BR-KLASSIK radio. The live-stream is available as Video-on-Demand for 30 days after the premiere on STAATSOPER.TV.

MORE NEWS
 
CHARITY CONCERT OF THE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE ON 10 JULY 2022 WITH OKSANA LYNIV
As part of the Munich Opera Festival, Oksana Lyniv conducts the benefit concert of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine on Sunday, 10 July 2022, 7.00 pm (CEST) at the Prinzregententheater.
To ensure the continued existence of the orchestra, donations and proceeds from the concert will be donated to the orchestra itself.
 
HEIMATRAUM MÜNCHEN
Every Wednesday on the Marstallplatz in Munich, the Bayerische Staatsoper offers Heimatraum München, a series of workshops for children and young people with and without refugee experience (between 6 and 18 years of age), in cooperation with the Residenztheater and HypoVereinsbank - Member of UniCredit since June 2022.

27 JUNE 2022: "DIE TEUFEL VON LOUDUN“

THE PIECE

THE PRODUCTION

THE CAST

ONLINE

PERFORMANCES

10 JULY 2022: FESTIVAL CONCERT OF THE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE

HEIMATRAUM MÜNCHEN

OPERA FESTIVAL PREMIERE "DIE TEUFEL VON LOUDUN“ ON 27 JUNE 2022

Krzysztof Penderecki's Die Teufel von Loudun premieres on Monday, 27 June 2022, 7 pm (CEST), opening this year's Munich Opera Festival. This is the first time the work has been performed in Munich as a premiere on the stage of the Nationaltheater.
 
The feigned exorcism of supposedly possessed convent women became the means to the end of silencing unwelcome forces on the scaffold. The idea of the Ursuline nun Jeanne and the lifestyle of the clergyman Grandier became a cocktail from which Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIII, aiming at omnipotence, constructed a diabolical relationship. Not only to get rid of an inconvenient free spirit, but to create a climate of fear in which no one will dare to oppose him.
 
"The devil is not to be believed even if he speaks the truth," is a principle of faith of St. Chrysostom. But if a king believes devilish whispers, it can quickly become lonely and gloomy around him. "Learn what love means," Grandier reminds Jeanne on the way to her execution. For only those who love may call themselves truly royal.
 
The New Production is under the Musical Direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski. Simon Stone directs. Ausrine Stundyte stars as Jeanne and Wolfgang Koch as Grandier.
 
The Festival premiere on Monday, 27 June 2022, 7 pm (CEST), is broadcast in a live-stream on STAATSOPER. TV, BR-KLASSIK Concert as well as on BR-KLASSIK radio.
The live-stream is available as Video-on-Demand for 30 days after the premiere on STAATSOPER.TV.

THE PIECE

The story in the opera is based on historical events in the early 1630s. Writer Aldous Huxley adapted the events into a documentary novel in 1952. Playwright John Whiting created a play on the basis of the story. Erich Fried translated the play into German. After Krzysztof Penderecki had read this drama text in 1964, based on a suggestion by Konrad Swinarski, he decided to transform it into an opera. He arranged the libretto himself, eliminating some of the characters and scenes Whiting had added.
 
Krzysztof Penderecki had already become known as a representative of the Polish avant-garde. He became well-known with his St. Luke Passion (1966). The following year, Rolf Liebermann commissioned him to compose for the Hamburg State Opera. As in the Passion, Penderecki "brings the experiences of his experimental early period in the borderland between sounds and noises, the radical material tests with alienated instrumental and vocal sounds, ingeniously handled cluster and glissando techniques now with melodic, linear-polyphonic, also harmonic aspects into compelling contexts," writes Wolfram Schwinger, although in the opera the composer is more sparing with music in favour of text comprehensibility: "The orchestral and choral language succeeds particularly succinctly: recumbent sounds, clusters and psalm-modulating repetitions define the monastery and church scenes in their eminently Catholic ambience. Riotous frenzy (derived from the Pilate and Golgotha scenes of the Passion) characterize orgiastic possession, exorcisms, torture and execution."
 
The premiere of the work took place at the opening of the 43rd World Music Festival of the International Society for New Music. Only two days after the premiere, a production by a team of Polish directors (directed by Konrad Swinarski; set design by Lidia Skarżyńska and Jerzy Skarżyński; conducted by Henryk Czyż), led by director and then Artistic Director Günther Rennert, was staged in Stuttgart. This production was shown twice the following year as a complete guest performance at the Nationaltheater in Munich.

THE PRODUCTION

"The action unfolds in a world that has the same look as ours, with the same materials and surfaces, with objects you could buy in Munich stores. The costumes are the same as what people wear on the streets today. But like all good science fiction stories, it presents a world with a parallel reality in which terrible things happen that you haven't even noticed yet. In this sense (...) I don't think we should feel too secure in our comfortable bourgeois existence." - Simon Stone
 
Born in Basel and raised in England and Australia, director Simon Stone quickly established a reputation for detailed, realistic operas consistently transposed into modern visual and living environments. While attending school, he founded his own theater academy, with which he adapted dramas by Chekhov and Ibsen and developed his concept of "overwriting" old stories in a modern-day setting. Since 2012, the international theater world became aware of his work with invitations to festivals. In 2015 he made his first feature film, The Wild Duck, followed in 2021 by the second, The Dig. Simon Stone's signature is unmistakable whether he is working with Ralph Myers as set designer or, as on Die Teufel von Loudun, with Bob Cousins (set) and Mel Page (costumes). The joint work with the latter two is based on a long-standing partnership that dates back to student productions in Australia and reaches as far as celebrated premieres at the Salzburg Festival (Lear, Médée).
 
For Die Teufel von Loudun, Bob Cousins has built a cuboid, stage-size house that stands on a turntable and is constantly in motion during the performance. It portrays a wealth of atmospheres and emotional temperatures under the lighting of Nick Schlieper.

THE CAST

General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski takes over the Musical Direction of the Munich premiere of Penderecki's first opera. The conductor had already advocated the work 20 years ago at the Dresden Music Festival.
Wolfgang Koch performs the leading role of the priest Grandier. The role represents a role debut for the baritone. Also making a role debut, Ausrine Stundyte returns to the Bayerische Staatsoper for the role of Jeanne after her engagement as Renata in Der feurige Engel. Also appearing are Martin Winkler as chief exorcist Father Barré, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as political string-puller Baron de Laubardemont, and Danae Kontora as the seduced bourgeois daughter Philippe. The Choir of the Bayerische Staatsoper is supported by an additional choir in this production. In the production, there are also numerous extras.
 
 
Conductor – Vladimir Jurowski
Production – Simon Stone
Set Design – Bob Cousins
Costume Design – Mel Page
Lightning – Nick Schlieper
Choirs – Stellario Fagone
Dramaturgy – Malte Krasting
 
Jeanne – Ausrine Stundyte
Claire – Ursula Hesse von den Steinen
Gabrielle – Nadezhda Gulitskaya
Louise – Lindsay Ammann
Philippe – Danae Kontora
Ninon – Nadezhda Karyazina
Grandier – Wolfgang Koch
Vater Barré – Martin Winkler
Baron de Laubardement – Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Vater Rangier – Andrew Harris
Vater Mignon – Ulrich Reß
Adam, Apotheker – Kevin Conners
Mannoury – Jochen Kupfer
Prinz Henri de Condé – Sean Michael Plumb
Vater Ambroise – Martin Snell
Bontemps – Christian Rieger

PERFORMANCES

Krzysztof Penderecki
DIE TEUFEL VON LOUDUN
Opera in three acts
Libretto by the composer based on Die Teufel von Loudun by Aldous Huxley in the dramatization by John Whiting using the German translation of the drama by Erich Fried
 
 
FESTIVAL PREMIERE
Mon, 27.6.2022, 7.00 pm (CEST)
From 6.30 pm (CEST) on BR-KLASSIK Live-Stream and on STAATSOPER.TV
Nationaltheater
 
 
FURTHER PERFORMANCES
Thu, 30.6.2022, 7.00 pm (CEST)
Sun, 3.7.2022, 7.00 pm (CEST)
Thu, 7.7.2022, 7.00 pm (CEST)
Nationaltheater
 
 
INTRODUCTORY MATINEE
Sun, 19.6.2022, 11.00 am (CEST)
Nationaltheater
 
The introductory matinee features conversations between Music Director Vladimir Jurowski, Director Simon Stone, and others involved in the production.

OKSANA LYNIV CONDUCTS FESTIVAL CONCERT OF THE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE ON 10 JULY 2022

As part of the Munich Opera Festival, Oksana Lyniv conducts the Festival Concert of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine Sunday, 10 July 2022, 7.00 pm (CEST), at the Prinzregententheater.
OKSANA LYNIV CONDUCTS FESTIVAL CONCERT OF THE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE ON 10 JULY 2022 

The conductor founded the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 2016. With the foundation by Oksana Lyniv, musicians between 12 and 22 years ever since have the opportunity to follow a musical education. Furthermore, the orchestra created a musical platform for the exchange between the musicians themselves.
Since 2016, the orchestra has been active internationally and under the Musical Direction of renowned conductors and soloists.
Together with Oksana Lyniv, the musicians perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Ukrainian composer Oleksandr Kozarenko, Yevhen Stankovych, Yuri Shevchenko and Zoltan Almashi.
 
To ensure the continued existence of the orchestra, donations and proceeds from the concert will benefit the orchestra itself.
 
 
FESTIVAL CONCERT OF THE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE
Sun, 10.6.2022, 7.00 pm (CEST)
Prinzregententheater
 
 
PROGRAM
Oleksandr Kozarenko
Irmologion for string orchestra
 
Yevhen Stankovych
Ukrainian Poem for violin and orchestra (soloist A. Murza)
 
Zoltan Almashi
Sinfonietta
 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 38 in D major KV 504 Prague

HEIMATRAUM MÜNCHEN
WORKSHOPS OF THE BAYERISCHE STAATSOPER, THE RESIDENZTHEATER AND THE HYPOVEREINSBANK FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WITH REFUGEE EXPERIENCE

In a joint effort, the Bayerische Staatsoper together with the Residenztheater and HypoVereinsbank - Member of UniCredit is organizing the so-called HEIMATRAUM MÜNCHEN starting this month. Once a week, free workshops for children and young people with and without refugee experience (between the ages of 6 and 18) are offered at the Marstallplatz in Munich, inviting them to sing, dance, make music and improvise together.
 
HEIMATRAUM MÜNCHEN
from 6 years
Every Wednesday (from June 2022)
4.00 to 7.00 pm (CEST)
Marstallplatz
 
DATES
Wed, 15.6.2022, 4.00 to 7.00 pm (CEST)
Wed, 22.6.2022, 4.00 to 7.00 pm (CEST)
Wed, 29.6.2022, 4.00 to 7.00 pm (CEST)
Wed, 20.7. 2022, 4.00 to 7.00 pm (CEST)
Wed, 27.7. 2022, 4.00 to 7.00 pm (CEST)
 
Please register at [email protected] indicating the number, age and language of the participants.
Participants can join at any time.
No previous knowledge required.