Alejo Schapire

Adapted from Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella, Death in Venice was Benjamin Britten’s last opera, the composer insisting on its completion while delaying badly needed heart surgery. The starkly simple narrative of a famous but failing novelist travelling to Venice to seek inspiration only to find unhealthy infatuation and deadly cholera, is given a chamber-like precision and clarity through Britten’s score, becoming a haunting drama filled with musical symbols, disquieting mystery and richly evocative atmospheres of Venice and its strange characters. Willy Decker’s Teatro Real production was described as ‘one of his most brilliant stage works… a remarkable technical feat.’ (bachtrack.com)

Charles-François Gounod’s Faust was once one of the most famous and most performed of all operas and is still cherished today. This is the first performance at the Salzburg Festival!
This stunning production was staged by Reinhard von der Thannen, the supreme cast is led by Piotr Beczała as Faust, Ildar Abdrazakov embodies a seductive and demonic Méphistophélès and Italian soprano Maria Agresta stars as Marguerite, who struggles to resist temptation and gain salvation. The Wiener Philharmoniker play under the baton of young Argentinian conductor Alejo Pérez.

Rossini’s second masterpiece La Cenerentola premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome on the 25th of January 1817, less than a year after the first performance of his The Barber of Seville and it ́s pure, perfect Rossini. In this production, a set-up made to celebrate 200 years Rossini in Rome, Emma Dante ́s “rousing Cinderella” (Corriere della Sera) “succeeds in impressing her own contemporary vision on a classic masterpiece, in perfect symbiosis with the spirit of Rossini.” (Opera Now) “Alejo Pérez deserves the credit for an excellent ensemble and a dazzling rhythmic rendering of the Rossinian score.” (La Nazione – Il Resto del Carlino – Il Giorno)