Schwetzingen SWR Festival
The Schwetzinger SWR Festival (formerly Schwetzingen Festival ) is an international festival of classical music that has been held annually in spring (late April to early June) since May 24, 1952 in the premises of Schwetzingen Castle ( Schwetzingen , North Baden ). Some concerts (mainly church concerts) also take place in nearby Speyer ( cathedral , Dreifaltigkeitskirche ). The festival is organized by the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele gGmbH, whose shareholders, in addition to Südwestrundfunk, are in equal parts the Rhein-Neckar district and the city of Schwetzingen.
Schwetzingen Palace with its park and court theater was the summer residence of the Elector Palatinate , who resided in nearby Heidelberg and Mannheim . What is now known as the Rococo Theater was built by Nicolas de Pigage and inaugurated on June 15, 1753. After the last Elector Karl Theodor moved to Munich (beginning of the year 1778), not only did the residence in Mannheim fall into a deep slumber, but also the summer palace in Schwetzingen. It was not until 1937 that the rococo theater was restored to its original purpose with the original stage machinery . For reasons of fire protection, the decision had to be made in 1971 whether the theater should be run as a museum in the future or whether it should be used. The decision was made for the performance and for a complete demolition and reconstruction of the stage building (the historic auditorium was retained).
As a rule, there have been two opera productions since then (cooperation with well-known opera houses, as the festival itself does not have any workshops) in the historic Rococo theater, the oldest, originally preserved ranked theater in the world. The repertoire includes world premieres of commissioned works (ie the composition commission is awarded by the Schwetzingen SWR Festival) and classical works, and in recent decades there has been an increasing number of excavations of unknown baroque and classical operas. In the process, numerous new editions of unknown and lost baroque operas were created. Another focus of the Schwetzingen Festival is on chamber music and orchestral works , presented by internationally renowned artists and highly talented young artists.
The SWR broadcasts all concerts on SWR2 and also arranges a selection of the concerts to other German and international broadcasters. Some events are also recorded by SWR television for broadcast on arte and 3sat . Thanks to the recordings of the SWR, the concerts of the festival can also be listened to on the website of the festival after the radio broadcast.
List of important rediscoveries (selection)
- 2001 La divisione del mondo , opera by Giovanni Lenzei , premiered in 1675
- 2003 Il figlio delle selve , opera by Ignaz Holzbauer , premiered in 1753 in Schwetzingen
- 2005 Telemaco , opera by Alessandro Scarlatti , WP 1718
- 2006 Proserpina , opera by Joseph Martin Kraus , premiere 1781
- 2007 Il Giustino , opera by Giovanni Lenzei , WP 1683 ( rediscovery of the year )
- 2008 Niobe, regina di Tebe , Dramma per musica in three acts by Agostino Steffani , libretto by Luigi Orlandi, premiered in Munich in 1688
- 2012 Rosamunde , opera by Anton Schweitzer , libretto by Christoph Martin Wieland , premiered January 20, 1780, Nationaltheater Mannheim
- 2014 Leucippo , opera by Johann Adolph Hasse , premiered in 1747
- 2016 Veremonda, l'amazzone di aragona , opera by Francesco Cavalli , German premiere , world premiere in Venice in 1652
- 2018 La fiera di Venezia , opera by Antonio Salieri , WP 1772 in Vienna
List of important world premieres (selection)
- 1957 Der Revisor , opera by Werner Egk
- 1960 La Battaglia or Der rote Federbusch , opera by Gerhard Wimberger
- 1961 Elegy for young lovers , opera by Hans Werner Henze
- 1962 In his garden, Don Perlimplin loves Belisa , an opera by Wolfgang Fortner
- 1964 Demeter , ballet by Boris Blacher
- 1968 Presence , ballet by Bernd Alois Zimmermann
- 1969 The fairy tale of the beautiful lily , opera by Giselher Klebe
- 1971 Melusine , opera by Aribert Reimann
- 1972 clarinet concerto by Boris Blacher
- 1977 String Quartet No. 4 and No. 5 by Hans Werner Henze
- 1979 The Tempest , ballet by Arne Nordheim
- 1982 The miraculous shoemaker's wife , opera by Udo Zimmermann
- 1983 The English Cat , opera by Hans Werner Henze
- 1984 Ophelia , opera by Rudolf Kelterborn
- 1986 The Sorrows of Young Werther , opera by Hans-Jürgen von Bose
- 1988 Der Wald , opera by Rolf Liebermann
- 1988 Gastmahl or Über die Liebe , opera by Georg Katzer
- 1991 Enrico , opera by Manfred Trojahn
- 1991 play of love and chance , opera by Helge Jörns
- 1994 Sansibar , opera by Eckehard Mayer
- 1994 Chess novella , opera by Violeta Dinescu
- 1997 dance lessons , ballet by Hans Werner Henze
- 1997 Babylon , opera by Detlef Heusinger
- 1998 Luci mie traditrici / The deadly flower , opera by Salvatore Sciarrino
- 2000 Good face, bad game , opera by Karl-Wieland Kurz
- 2001 Bacon , opera by Manuel Hidalgo
- 2002 Macbeth , opera by Salvatore Sciarrino (world premiere of the year )
- 2005 Magic , opera by Frederik Zeller
- 2006 Cold ( Da Gelo a Gelo ), opera by Salvatore Sciarrino
- 2007 Der Alte vom Berge , opera by Bernhard Lang
- 2008 Hybris / Niobe , drama for voices by Adriana Hölszky
- 2009 Proserpina , monodrama for soprano, female choir and orchestra by Wolfgang Rihm (world premiere of the year )
- 2010 Le Père , music theater by Michael Jarrell
- 2011 Bluthaus , opera by Georg Friedrich Haas
- 2012 IQ , opera by Enno Poppe
- 2013 Thomas , opera by Georg Friedrich Haas
- 2014 Re: igen , opera by Bernhard Lang
- 2015 Wilde , opera by Hèctor Parra
- 2016 Koma , opera by Georg Friedrich Haas (world premiere of the year )
- 2017 Tre Volti - Three Views of Love and War , music theater by Annette Schlünz
- 2018 Argo , “Dramma in musica” by José María Sánchez Verdú
- 2019 The Fall of Babel , music theater by Elena Mendoza
literature
- B. Hermann, P. Stieber (Eds.) An Arcadia of Music - 50 Years of the Schwetzingen Festival 1952–2002 , Metzler Verlag Stuttgart
- B. Hermann, E. Stett, P. Stieber (Eds.) Arcadia continues to sound - Schwetzingen SWR Festival 2003–2012 , Schwetzingen SWR Festival GmbH
- S. Leopold, B. Pelker (eds.) Hofoper in Schwetzingen - music, stage art, architecture , Winter Verlag Heidelberg