Volksoper Vienna 22 October 2022 - Iolanta and the Nutcracker | GoComGo.com

Iolanta and the Nutcracker

Volksoper Vienna, Vienna, Austria
All photos (11)
Saturday 22 October 2022

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Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Vienna, Austria
Starts at: 18:00
Overview

Musical theatre piece based on the opera and ballet by Peter Iljitsch Tschaikowski.

A poetic family performance for children and adults, combining dance and song with imaginative costumes, a seven-headed Mouse King in the snow and a utopian ending. Lotte de Beer, Omer Meir Wellber and Andrey Kaydanovskiy present an evening of two of Tchaikovsky's masterpieces: the opera Jolanthe and the ballet The Nutcracker.

Jolanthe is a blind princess. A famous doctor is able to cure her, but only after she has been told about her blindness. Her father, however, does not want to break this news to her, to spare her pain at any cost. An unexpected visitor, the future lover, explains to the princess what it means to be able to see. Not only in Jolanthe does a rift through the ordered structures of childhood lead to a new world, but also in Tchaikovsky's ballet: a girl recognises a prince in the Nutcracker, with whom she sets off on a dream journey to a fairytale land of milk and honey.

The Volksoper interweaves the two works into a story about growing up and learning to see the world as it is. The Nutcracker music and the dancers of the Vienna State Ballet show us the world of Jolanthe's inner eye. "There comes a time in life when you have to decide whether you want to remain a blind princess or see the world in all its imperfection," says Lotte de Beer.

From the Vienna State Ballet, the dancers of the corps de ballet can be experienced as flowers, candys, soldiers, mouse kings and snowflakes.

History
Premiere of this production: 18 December 1892, Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg

Iolanta is a lyric opera in one act by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It was the last opera he composed. The libretto was written by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, and is based on the Danish play Kong Renés Datter (King René's Daughter) by Henrik Hertz, a romanticised account of the life of Yolande de Bar. In the original Danish play, the spelling of the princess's name was "Iolanthe", later adopted for the otherwise unrelated Gilbert and Sullivan operetta of that name. The play was translated by Fyodor Miller and adapted by Vladimir Zotov. The opera received its premiere on 18 December 1892 in Saint Petersburg.

Premiere of this production: 06 December 1892, Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg

The Nutcracker (Balet-feyeriya) is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King".

Venue Info

Volksoper Vienna - Vienna
Location   Währinger Strasse 78

The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It produces three hundred performances of twenty-five German language productions during an annual season which runs from September through June.

Volksoper Vienna was built in 1898 as the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater (Kaiser's Jubilee Civic Theatre), originally producing only plays. Because of the very brief construction period (10 months) the first director Adam Müller-Gutenbrunn had to start with debts of 160,000 gulden. After this inauspicious startup the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater had to declare bankruptcy five years later in 1903.

On 1 September 1903 Rainer Simons took over the house and renamed it the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater - Volksoper (public opera). His intention was to continue the production of plays but also establish series of opera and operetta. The first Viennese performances of Tosca and Salome were given at the Volksoper in 1907 and 1910 respectively. World-famous singers such as Maria Jeritza, Leo Slezak and Richard Tauber appeared there; the conductor Alexander Zemlinsky became the first bandmaster in 1906.

In the years up to and through the First World War the Volksoper attained a position as Vienna's second prestige opera house. In 1919, Felix Weingartner became Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. He was followed as Director by Hugo Gruder-Guntram. After 1929, it focused on light opera, and under Gruder-Guntram undertook a number of summer tours to Abbazia in 1935, Cairo and Alexandria in 1937 and throughout Italy in 1938, with guest appearances from Richard Tauber. After the Second World War, the Vienna Volksoper became the alternative venue to the devastated Vienna State Opera. In 1955 the Volksoper returned to its former role of presenting opera, operetta, and musicals.

From September 1991 to June 1996 the Vienna Volksoper was under a collective leadership with the Vienna State Opera. In 1999 the Volksoper became a 100% subsidiary of the Bundestheater-Holding. Since 1 September 2007 Robert Meyer has headed the Volksoper as artistic director together with the business manager Christoph Ladstätter. Each season includes about 25 productions, a total of approximately 300 performances—a performance almost every day. In addition to opera, operetta, musicals and ballet, there are special performances and children's programs.

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Vienna, Austria
Starts at: 18:00
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