The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Muzak

Festspielzentrum, Erl, Austria

New Year’s Eve Opera Gala (Silvesterkonzert) / New Year’s Day concert (Neujahrskonzert)
Orchester und Chorakademie der Tiroler Festspiele Erl conducted by Beomseok Yi and Oksana Lyniv 
Reviewed by Tony Cooper on 1 January 2019 
Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
A couple of concerts that proved a brilliant turn-of-the-year affair in the company of an adorable Austrian-based audience simply mesmerised by the Blue Danube

You wouldn’t get a better musical offering to see out the old year and welcome the new than these two concerts by the Orchester und Chorakademie der Tiroler Festspiele Erl at the Erl Festspielhaus pitched in a beautiful setting and surrounded by a snow-covered mountainous landscape that more than painted a pretty picture highlighting the majestic beauty of the Austrian Tyrol in all its consummate winter glory.

The New Year’s Eve Opera Gala (Silvesterkonzert) - peppered with four orchestral pieces - more than showed off the prowess and fine playing of the Orchester der Tiroler Festspiele Erl under South Korean-born conductor, Beomseok Yi. The rousing overture to Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla got the concert off to a spirited start while energetic performances of the ‘Sinfonia’ from Verdi’s Luisa Miller and the ‘Intermezzo’ from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut added to the overall excitement of the evening.

If the orchestra found themselves on top form so did the quartet of singers engaged for this significant concert of Erl’s winter festival which was established in 2012. Not only did they end the year on a high but so did the audience. The Australian-born baritone, James Roser, delivered a brilliant reading of the aria ‘Nemico della Patria’ from Giordano’s Andrea Chenier and successfully teamed up with the Chinese-born tenor, Hui Jin, for a dramatic reading of that well-loved duet from Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore - ‘Venti scudi’.

Georgian-born, Sophie Gordeladze, sparkled in Leonora’s aria ‘Tacea la note placida’ from Verdi’s Il trovatore with her high soprano voice capturing the piece so clear and convincingly while the Italian-born mezzo-soprano, Alena Sautier, coquettish, sultry looking and frightfully good-looking, proved the perfect choice to sing the gypsy song (‘Les tringles des sistres tintaient’) from Bizet’s Carmen. She was also heard to extremely good effect in ‘Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix’ (Softly awakes my heart) - Saint-Saens’ popular aria from Samson and Delilah.

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tiroler Festpiele Erl (Austria)

Wagner: The Ring - Das Rheingold - Michiko Watanabe, Yukiko Aragaki, Misaki Ono as Rhinemaidens - Erl Festival (Photo Xiomara Bender)

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen; Frederik Baldus, Joo-Anne Bitter, Ferdinand von Bothmer, Johannes Chum, Thomas Gazheli, Hermine Haselböck, Franz Hawlata, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Alena Sautier, Andrea Silvestrelli, Giorgio Valenta. Orchester und Chorakademie der Tiroler Festspiele Erl, cond Gustav Kuhn; Passionsspielhaus, Erl (Austria) Reviewed by Tony Cooper on 24 July 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
The Ring in the Tyrol proved a wonderful and rewarding experience

Wagner: The Ring - Das Rheingold
Michael Kupfer as Wotan - Erl Festival (Photo Xiomara Bender)

Our roving correspondent Tony Cooper experiences Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in the Austrian Tyrol directed by Dr Gustav Kuhn with Susanne Geb, Magdalena Anna Hofmann, George Vincent Humphrey, Rena Kleifeld, Svetlana Kotina, Valentin Lewisch, Werner van Mechelen, Raphael Sigling, Andrew Sritheran, Nancy Weissbach, Wolfram Wittekind, and Gianluca Zampieri.

That well-known English proverb ‘From Little Acorns Do Mighty Oaks Grow’ well describes the Erl Festival which was founded in a humble and unassuming way by director/conductor Dr Gustav Kuhn and dramaturg Andreas Schett in the small, idyllic and pretty Austrian Tyrolean village in 1997.

An eager, energetic and charismatic conductor, Dr Kuhn has turned Erl (with a population of around 1400) into what could readily be described as an ‘Austrian Bayreuth’ and, like Bayreuth, it is set in its own Green Hill but here surrounded by a glorious mountainous landscape that simply takes your breath away particularly as you exit the theatre following an evening’s performance with the mountains, silhouetted against the vanishing night sky, acting as a realistic backdrop to Mother Nature.

Wagner: The Ring - Das Rheingold
Thomas Gazheli as Alberich - Erl Festival (Photo Xiomara Bender)

A Salzburger and an enfant terrible of the contemporary-music scene, Dr Kuhn made Wagnerian history in Erl when he presided over the world’s first 24-hour Ring in 2014. The following year the production found favour in Shanghai.

Now aged 73, Kuhn - who studied music from the tender age of five - was destined to succeed in his chosen profession. He won the International Conducting Competition of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation in 1969 and a year later completed a PhD in philosophy, psychopathology and psychology. Just the right credentials for Wagner! And to forge his career as a conductor, he studied under the Italian composer/conductor Bruno Maderna as well as Herbert von Karajan, another Salzburger. As his international conducting career blossomed, particularly in Italy, he decided to turn his hand to stage direction and producing in 1986.

Therefore, he’s just the right man for the job at theErl Festival which, incidentally, opened in a blaze of glory with a performance of Das Rheingold in 1998. Over the past 20 years, the festival has matured and blossomed into a major international event not just for Wagnerians but for classical-music lovers, too.

Wagner: The Ring - Die Walküre - Susanne Geb as Brünnhilde,
Vladimir Baykov as Wotan - Erl Festival (Photo Xiomara Bender)

For instance, there’s a big focus this year on English composers with the programme featuring the Cheshire-born composer, author and poet, Cyril Scott, a man ahead of his time both in his music, thought and ideas. He’s widely recognised as one of the most remarkable men of his generation. Other English composers featured this season, too, include Britten and Walton while those two giant names of Italian music, Rossini and Verdi, also find their way on to the bill.

The programme at Erl, however, covers about 30 events over the summer period ranging from operas and concerts to chamber-music gatherings which are attended by more than 20,000 people each year. An annual winter festival runs, too, from St Stephen’s Day (26th December) through to the Feast of the Epiphany - Three King’s Day (6th January).


But the seemingly-remote village of Erl - universally renowned for its ‘Passion Play’ - is not that remote, really, as it’s roughly an hour’s drive from Munich, Innsbruck (the capital of the Tyrol) and Salzburg. In fact, performances of the Ring actually takes place in the 1959-built Passionspielhaus and only used in the summer months because it has no heating capacity.