From 23 June 2023, the Styriarte Festival in Graz took place for a whole month, with programmes of various genres. I attended the first two days of the festival, so I had the opportunity to listen to music in the beautiful Baroque halls of the Palais Attems and to see Johann Joseph Fux’s Costanza e fortezza (Constancy and strength) in the equally impressive Eggenberg Castle.
- hirdetés -
Legendary Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt founded Styriarte Festival in his hometown in 1985, of which he was the artistic director until his death in 2016. The festival is musically dominated by works from the Baroque and Classical eras, but this year’s programme also included film scores by John Williams and Alan Silvestri, and the world premiere of Manuela Kerer’s Hasta la vista, baby!, a piece in honour of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born near Graz. But the American movie star wasn’t the only „superhero” Styriarte featured: this year’s concept evoked heroes and heroines of old and modern times in different forms. Hercules, Cleopatra, Dido, and Joan of Arc are just a few of the names on the programme, with concerts also held under the titles of Pop Heroes and Opera Heroes.
On the opening day of the festival, we met the heroes and heroines of Purcell, Händel, and Mozart in the show called Treppauf, treppab (Up the Stairs, Down the Stairs). This was a recreation of an 18th century concert style, where the halls of the building were open and guests could listen to music as they wished to, passing from one place to another. The Styriarte had two different programmes, one group beginning every hour on the hour and the other at every hour half hour, and touring the palace halls with a guide.
On the first stop, the Palais Attems Hofkapelle performed an arrangement of Purcell’s King Arthur and Händel’s Alcina. Both performances were fresh and lively, and I would like to highlight the light, virtuosic playing of the two recorder players. Moving on, we were treated to a one-man show in which Hippolyth, the „master of the court”, introduced us to the history of the palace. (In the future, it would be useful to have an English version so that all visitors can fully understand what they hear.)
Then it was on to the „Bird Room”, where Mozart pieces were performed by two sopranos, Elisabeth Breuer and Maria Ladurner, accompanied by Florian Birsak on fortepiano. We could hear Cherubino’s wonderful aria Voi che sapete, and Susanna’s aria Un moto di gioia, both from The Marriage of Figaro. The latter is particularly noteworthy because it does not appear in the original version of the opera, Mozart having written it later for a singer named Adriana Ferrarese del Bene when Figaro was first performed in Paris in 1789. So this gem was a real curiosity. However, it wasn’t one of the arias that made the biggest impression on me, but the Fantasia in D minor, which with its melancholy tone transported me to another world, thanks to the playing of the excellent Salzburg-born artist Florian Birsak.
On 24 June, Styriarte’s own production, Johann Joseph Fux’s Perseverance and Strength, was performed in the courtyard of the Eggenberg Castle, a real operatic rarity, and it is no coincidence that the festival has staged it this year. The composer, who lived in the Baroque period, was in the service of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (King Charles III of Hungary, 1685–1740) and wrote this opera for the birthday of the Emperor’s wife, which was premiered exactly three centuries ago, in the summer of 1723. Perseverance and Strength was originally a five-hour work with chorus and ballet, but a shortened version was performed at the Styriarte, focusing on the four characters in the story.
In 508 BC, we find ourselves in ancient Rome when the city is under attack by the Etruscans. Two loving couple (Valeria and Muzio, Clelia and Orazio) defend Rome to the death, while the enemy’s leaders set eyes on both women. In the concert performance, four singers (Monica Piccinini, Marianne Beate Kielland, Rafal Tomkiewicz and Valerio Contaldo) took to the stage, singing not only the solo parts but the choral parts as well, and the male singers sang two different roles. These shifts were smooth and easy to follow, most of the time with an extra prop (such as a crown or a robe) to indicate the change of roles, but the facial expressions and small gestures of Tomkiewicz and Contaldo also showed the difference. The singers were all excellent vocally.
The performance had an exciting twist compared to the original version. There was also a prose actor on stage, playing the composer Fux himself, narrating the events between arias and recitatives. In addition, a Hungarian-born artist, János Mischuretz, was cast in the role.
Of course, the performance of conductor Alfredo Bernardini and his ensemble, the Zefiro Baroque Orchestra, who accompanied the soloists with precision and in supportive spirit, must also be mentioned. Fux’s music was a delightful discovery – as early music lovers, we could have a similar experience to a Händel opera, for example. The venue, the atmospheric courtyard of the Eggenberg Castle, added to the concert experience.
The programmes I attended at the Styriarte Festival gave me uplifting moments of excellence that will stay with me for a long time. Up the Stairs, Down the Stairs revived an exciting concert form, while Perseverance and Strength showed that there is life beyond the „hit operas” of today’s popular Baroque composers.
