Opening Concert
SOLD OUT
Begin: 7:00 pm
Break: 7:55 pm
End: 9:10 pm
Opening speech of the president of the Tyrol Festival Erl Dr. Hans Peter Haselsteiner
Reinhold Glière
“The Zaporozhy Cossacks” Ouverture op. 64
2nd speech
Sir Edward Elgar
„Introduction and Allegro“ op. 47
for string orchestra and string quartet
3rd speech
Richard Wagner
Siegfried's death from the opera „Götterdämmerung“
Giuseppe Verdi
Prelude from the opera "Nabucco"
Anton Bruckner
Te Deum in C-major WAB 45
Orchester und Chor der Tiroler Festspiele Erl
Conducting Erik Nielsen
Violine Erik Schumann
Violine Ken Schumann
Viola Veit Hertenstein
Violoncello Mark Schumann
In the welcome address for the opening concert in 2022 a unified Europe was extolled and it is with music by Reinhold Glière – born in Kiev, died in Moscow, son of the instrument maker Moritz Glier from the Vogtland – that we embark on a small musical journey.
The arts can provide the building bricks to bridge over trenches, or perhaps even the English Channel. Sir Edward Elgar’s music is also on the programme without pomp and circumstance, but unmistakably Elgar, one of his short, noble pieces.
The Tyrol Festival Orchestra is assisted by the Schumann Quartet which enthralled audiences already last summer and again this year gives two more concerts. What would the Tyrol Festival Erl be without Richard Wagner at the beginning of the year? After Bayreuth the route heads towards Milan and Verdi. They are both pioneering composers, both born in 1813, and both revolutionised opera in their own nationalistic way. Throughout their life they avoided each other.
Anton Bruckner brings us back to Austria. His Te Deum, still one of his most popular works and described by the deeply religious composer as the “pride of his life” is absolutely the perfect conclusion to the first concert as well as the perfect beginning of the Tyrol Festival Erl 2023.
Orchester und Chor der Tiroler Festspiele Erl
Erik Nielsen
Conducting
Erik Schumann
Violine
Ken Schumann
Violine
Veit Hertenstein
Viola
Mark Schumann
Violoncello
Orchester und Chor der Tiroler Festspiele Erl
Musik wächst aus der Begeisterung eines über die Jahre zusammengewachsenen, motivierten und exzellent vorbereiteten Ensembles, das sich einen Ruf als eines der besten Wagnerorchester weltweit erarbeitet und die Tiroler Festspiele Erl international bekannt gemacht hat. 1999 formierte sich das Orchester der Tiroler Festspiele unter der Leitung von Gustav Kuhn, inzwischen spielen Musiker*innen aus 20 Nationen zusammen. Junge Spitzentalente, Musiker*innen aus großen internationalen Orchestern, Kammermusikspezialist*innen und Dozent*innen kommen so jährlich im Sommer und Winter, seit 2017 auch im Herbst und an Ostern im Rahmen der Tiroler Festspiele Erl zusammen. Zum Repertoire des Klangkörpers gehören neben den zehn großen Musikdramen Richard Wagners und Opern von Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi und Rossini auch die Symphonien Beethovens und viele weitere zentrale Werke des Konzertrepertoires sowie zeitgenössische Werke und Uraufführungen. Seit der Sommersaison 2022 ist Erik Nielsen Chefdirigent des Orchesters der Tiroler Festspiele Erl.
Erik
Nielsen
Erik Nielsen has been chief conductor of the Tyrol Festival Erl since 2022, where he conducts the entire "Ring des Nibelungen" and has already been on the podium for "Le postillon de Lonjumeau" and numerous concerts. Chief conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra since 2015, he will complete his ninth and final season with the orchestra in 2024. From 2016 to 2018, Erik Nielsen was music director of the Theater Basel.
He also has a decade-long collaboration with the Frankfurt Opera. His most recent engagements include "Rusalka" and "Norma" at the Semperoper Dresden, "Salome" at the Zurich Opera House, the world premiere of Manfred Trojahn's "Eurydice - The Lovers Blind" at De Nationale Opera Amsterdam, "Peter Grimes," "Das Rheingold" and Křenek's "Karl V. " at the Bavarian State Opera, "Pelléas et Mélisande" at the Semperoper Dresden, "Peter Grimes" and Trojahn's "Orest" at the Zurich Opera House, "Billy Budd" and Lachenmann's "Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern" at the Frankfurt Opera, and "The Rake's Progress" in Budapest. Future plans include "Aida" in Frankfurt and "Oedipus Rex" / "Antigone" at De Nationale Opera Amsterdam.
Concerts have taken Erik Nielsen to Oslo, Manchester, Stockholm, Madrid, Strasbourg, Lisbon, Basel, the Aspen Music Festival and the Interlochen Center for the Arts, among others. After studying harp, oboe and conducting in New York and Philadelphia, he was a member of the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic as a harpist.