Hotel Metamorphosis

Hofstallgasse 1

5020 Salzburg

 

A young woman who desires her own father and is turned into a tree. A young man who loves himself so much that he does not notice the advances of a nymph who ultimately only exists as a voice. A goddess who turns her rival into a spider because of her flawless weaving skills. A man whose statue of a woman who is perfect for him comes to life. A legendary singer whose lover awaits his return in the underworld.

For over 2000 years, Ovid's Metamorphoses have shaped our culture and are an inexhaustible source of inspiration for countless artistic adaptations. Just as the characters in the individual stories are transformed, the stories themselves also transform, and their fantasy and monstrosity still fascinate us today. The boundaries between man and nature, gods and animals blur. The astonishing events nevertheless arise from human perception between dream, reality, nightmare, hallucination. Incredible and grotesque fantasies that overtake people in strange surroundings in unknown places.

Ovid's cosmos and numerous other ancient subjects created an inestimable wealth of music, especially in the first two centuries of the young genre of opera. Breathtakingly virtuosic and movingly emotional, this new art form also revealed playful lightness, subtle humor and unbridled desire for transformation. This is how the pasticcio genre was born, for which a new work was put together from existing pieces by one or more composers. The original plot elements were adapted, or a completely new story was invented around the selected pieces of music. This permeable and versatile form of opera and oratorio flourished in Italy in the first half of the 18th century. Antonio Vivaldi himself combined his own and other people's compositions for his pasticcio Il Tamerlano (Il Bajazet).

From the unique variety of Vivaldi's arias, ensembles and choirs, Hotel Metamorphosis creates a pasticcio of our time that tells individual episodes from Ovid's Metamorphoses with this particularly emotionally charged music. The transformations of the mythical figures become miraculous events that happen to people today. Vivaldi's orchestral music, which often allows individual instruments to stand out, offers a colorful spectrum to transform Ovid's stories into dance and movement. The Orpheus figure wanders through the different worlds as a narrator.

Cecilia Bartoli has put together an outstanding vocal cast for this new pasticcio with Varduhi Abrahamyan, Lea Desandre and Philippe Jaroussky. The singers embody different characters on stage who experience their own metamorphoses and those of others. Angela Winkler acts with them as an actress. Gianluca Capuano, a Vivaldi expert and a regular guest in Salzburg for many years, conducts Les Musiciens du Prince - Monaco. Director Barrie Kosky returns to the festival with this special project after Orphée aux enfers and Káťa Kabanová.

(Source: salzburgerfestspiele.at)