English music is so rarely heard at the Salzburg festival that it was something of a surprise this year to find pride of place among the new productions given to Purcell's King Arthur. Though originally described as a 'dramatick opera' it is in fact a musical play, with Purcell's score lightly illustrating a pantomime-like piece by Dryden, here presented in a knockabout version in German. The costumes are modern - even conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt gamely sports a woolly hat in the frost scene; King Arthur (actor Michael Maertens), jackbooted in military uniform, emerges as a rather wimpish often hysterical figure with quiff, little moustache and weak chin, more King Adolf than King Arthur.
His great enemy is the heathen Saxon invader, Oswald, assisted by the earth spirit, Grimbold. And yet the story is so inconsequential that by act five the conflict simply evaporates, with the two enemies reconciled, and sight restored to the blind Emmeline, Arthur's beloved.
This production, although fun, can be hard on the non-German speaker. The high proportion of spoken dialogue to music reminds us that Purcell's contribution was relatively slight, with no more than eight or nine brief numbers (culminating in Fairest Isle, gloriously sung by Barbara Bonney).
Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, a festival staple since Richard Strauss conducted it in 1922, was this year presented for the first time on the wide stage of the Grosses Festspielhaus. Ursel and Karl-Ernst Hermann's production exaggerates the size of the stage by having it bare of scenery, a symbolic egg or two dotted around, and an enormous feather suspended above.
Though the cast is first-rate and Philippe Jordan draws stylish playing from the Vienna Philharmonic, the piece is swamped. Dozens of chorus members and extras clutter the stage, and the costumes are not always helpful, with Thomas Allen as Don Alfonso barely identifiable thanks to an odd hairstyle.
The singing is excellent, with Elina Garanca outstanding as Dorabella, Tamar Iveri a fresh-voiced Fiordiligi, and best of all, the veteran, Helen Donath, at 64 making a wonderfully feisty Despina.
Robert Carsen's new production of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier opens with a suite of five crimson-walled rooms spread before us, guarded by flunkies. This neatly sorts out the many characters in the Marschallin's levee. But with up to 200 extras on stage, the production is in every way excessive, and the act three curtain, designed to shock, has a fleeting vision of a whole army shot down - strange symbolism in this "comedy for music".
Happily Semyon Bychkov and the Vienna Philharmonic help an excellent cast bring off the big emotional moments, with Adrianne Pieczonka a commanding Marschallin, Angelika Kirschlager wonderfully boyish as Octavian, Miah Persson a bright Sophie and Franz Hawlata a strong, forthright Baron Ochs.
More from Salzburg: War and Peace, Vengerov, Kopatchinskaya, Mattila
