Un ballo in maschera

The three Casts

As normal for the floating stage, which is mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records as largest stage in the world, three casts are singing the 24 performances between July 21 and August 22. Due to the individual singers the musical interpretation of the roles is sometimes quite different. As Amelia of the first night could be heard Elizabeth Whitehouse. The German-based Australian soprano, who is going to sing Tosca at Sydney Opera House during the 2000 Olympics, gave her Amelia with her clear, pure and beautiful soprano a more lyrical touch, which suits well the dance-like general mood of the production. A more dramatic interpretation give the American sopranos Susan Neves and Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet. The widest voice range and the most voluminous voice of the three Amelias owns certainly Susann Neves, whose Abigail in a new production of Verdi's Nabucco at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in February 2000 one can expect with some joyful anticipation. For Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, whose warm timbre and intensive art of acting did impress especially, was her Bregenz Amelia her debut in the German-speaking area. As Amelia she had had also her Italian debut at the Teatro Communale at Florence in 1995 and she had opened the '98/99 season at Dallas (USA) in this role.

To sing the Gustavo of the premiere was the turn of Stephen O'Mara, who is not unknown at Bregenz since his debut as Don José in Carmen on the floating stage in the beginning of the nineties. The American tenor presents with his sophisticated voice an youthful-fresh king, whom you believe his intrepidity towards death. His successful debut on the European continent gave the Mexican tenor Rafael Rojas, who had studied in Mexico and Great-Britain and has meanwhile matured with his well-tempered and expressive voice to one of the most requested tenors in the USA. A star of all great opera houses in the world was engaged with the British tenor David Rendall, who gave his Gustavo a very nice, lyrical touch.

Three times casted were also the roles of Renato and Oscar. The performers of Renato could not have been more different. For July 21 the choice had been made for the in Great-Britain living Pavlo Hunka, who gave with his bass-colored baritone the role of Count Ankarström a very deep touch and a very resolute appearance. The Georgian baritone Lado Ataneli appears to be very suitable for Verdi parts with his wonderful legato. After winning several prizes in competitions and his career start in Germany Ataneli is singing today in some of the most famous opera houses like the Vienna State Opera or the Scala at Milano. The Deutsche Oper Berlin can be happy to count him to its ensemble for the season 1999/2000 on. With beautiful arias and greatest competence in the heights and the depths the French baritone Philippe Rouillon came up. He belongs to the stars at Bregenz since his impressive hight priest Dagon in Samson et Dalila in 1989. After Dagon, Escamillo, Méphisto (La damnation de Faust), Gianciotto (Francesca da Rimini) and Arthus (Le Roi Arthus) Renato led the 'Vorarlberger Kammersänger' already for the sixth role to Bregenz. In the Koch-Schwann-Edition 'Bregenzer Festspiele' are some of the operas with Philippe Rouillon published on CD.

Also the three Oscars come up with very different colored voices. All three soar easily in highest notes and they offer all three a dance-like, playful Oscar, who asks from them a lot also as actors. While the Spanish soprano Elena de la Merced and the in Vienna based German soprano Uta Schwabe give their Oscars also vocally a very youthful touch, he appears a little bit more ripe with the slightly darker timbre of the in Denmark living Polish soprano Agnes Wolska.

The parts of the fortune-teller Ulrica and of the sailor Christian are only twice casted with the Italian mezzo Elisabetta Fiorillo and the Hungarian mezzo Ildiko Szönyi and with the Israelite baritone Boaz Daniel and the Chinese baritone Haitao Wang respectively. Since Ulrica's 'home', the coffin, was rocking very much in the foaming waves of the Bodensee and sometimes purely and simply devoured the voices of the two mezzos, it is hard to say something bout their voices. To produce highest vocal performances on such a rocking ground is outstanding difficult. The same counts for the part of Christian, while it is not as leading and much shorter and the two singers could arrange more well-sounding with the elements.

Also, when they do not own great arias, the two main bass parts are permanently on duty and this in two aspects: Hernan Iturralde as Count Horn and Arutjun Kotchinian as Graf Ribbing are almost always present on stage, comment on the events, push it sometimes even forward with their full, expressive, also in the ensembles well to be heard bass voices. In contrast with the other soloists they are not twice or three times casted, they have to sing all performances. Like the two main conspirators also the in France born tenor Ivan Matiakh has to sing the judge and the servant in all performances on the floating stage.

The work at the conductor's desk is shared by Marcello Viotti, who is responsible for the musical direction, and Ludovico Zocche, who supported Viotti already during the rehearsal time. Different to the singers the two conductors do not take turns in conducting, instead Marcello Viotti will conduct 18 performances including August 14 and Ludovico Zocche the other eight performances till August 22.