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News • Finland • 2014-07-06

Semperoper Dresden and Volksoper Wien to honour the 2015 season

The Savonlinna Opera Festival’s own new production for the 2015 season is Mussorgsky’s great masterpiece Boris Godunov based partly on the text by Russia’s national poet, Alexander Pushkin. The stage director is German Nicola Raab and the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra and Choir will be conducted by Finnish maestro Leif Segerstam.

Taking the part of Godunov the Tsar is Matti Salminen (bass). His opponent is the Russian people, its feelings forcibly portrayed by the Opera Festival Choir. Boris Godunov is a co-production with the Chorégies d’Orange festival.

The world-famous Semperoper Dresden and Volksoper Wien will be making their first visit to Savonlinna in summer 2015, and both at the same time.

Accompanying the Semperoper Dresden on its journey to Savonlinna will be the Sächsische Semperoper Dresden famous for its magnificent sound. For Olavinlinna Castle, they have chosen Johannes Erath’s direction of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, to be premiered in Dresden in June 2015 before travelling straight on to Savonlinna.

The Volksoper Wien opens the Opera Festival season on July 3 with Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow. This classic Viennese gem is the first operetta in the history of Olavinlinna Castle and it will be conducted by Alfred Eschwé. The original direction is by Marco Arturo Marelli.

“We want to offer our visitors more new productions and diversify the festival’s offering,” says the Festival’s General Director Jan Strandholm. “In future, we’ll be inviting two first-class opera houses to visit us each year. We’re now bringing the scheme forward and in this way giving our repertoire greater variety.”

Two favourite classics from the Italian opera repertoire, Puccini’s Tosca and Verdi’s La traviata, will be back on the programme with their numerous popular arias. Tosca will be conducted by Philippe Auguin and the stage director is Keith Warner. The story of the Lady of the Camellias unfolds in the wickedly passionate La traviata, which returns to Olavinlinna Castle by popular request in the direction of Mariusz Treliński and will be conducted by a new Sa

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