"KÖNIG DES GLÜCKS" World Premiere at the festival of Vienna
DPA
“Mozartband Stuns Festival of Vienna Audience with Opera Adaptation”
“At the Festival of Vienna, Mozart and rock music entered into unconventional but successful association…
The “Mozartband” led by the Austrian rock musician Wolfgang Staribacher had adapted Mozart’s opera “Il re pastore” in a radical way. Last night, the first performance under the title “König des Glücks” was acclaimed by a rapt audience. The first reviews praised “König des Glücks” as an “historic experiment”, a crossing of borders between the world of Mozart and modern pop music…”
APA
“Wolfgang Staribacher Has Hot Clues to Mozart”
“Mozart’s allegretti are pure rock’n’roll”, found musician and composer Wolfgang Staribacher and gathered adepts of this creed from the realms of classical music, rock, and avant-garde to set up the Mozartband in 1995. Judging by the enthusiastic cheering and storms of applause during and after the premiere, Staribacher won many new enthusiastic fans for Amadeus, the king of pop…
“Claudia Weinzierl’s adaptation has nothing in common with the pastoral play by court librettist Metastasio… Instead, a philosophizing play with new text (written by Friedhelm Kändler) containing lots of puns, rather in the style of an oratorio (with Anne-Isabelle Zils playing the speaker, a charming, enigmatic fool), was built around Mozart’s groovy songs that still told of sighs, hopes, and hankerings of love in Italian…”
SALZBURGER NACHRICHTEN
“Music, the Lucky Charm”
Wolfgang Staribacher, former composer and producer for Hubert von Goisern’s Alpinkatzen, demonstrated how Mozart’s music is still alive with a sure instinct for the rough, the rebellious, but also the folk music of Alpine regions, using an accordion, violin, viola, bassoon, and drums along with electronic equipment, accented rhythms, and alienation…
“Of course, you can read different things into Mozart. However, there is something crisp, lively and joyous about his music; and Staribacher revealed the very essence of it and enchanted the audience… In the end it became clear how powerful and direct this music by nineteen-year-old Mozart is, what potential it still has for today, how much swing and beat it has got…
“Why is this fairytale about the “King of Fortune” not yet available on CD for home use and therapeutic use by public institutions? ...”
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG
“Mozart Is Pop Music”
“It may well have been not so easy to be impartial about Don Giovanni, but there is definitely no desecration of a musical icon or crossover chirping – Wolfgang Staribacher, responsible for the adaptation, leader of the band, and player of an eloquent accordion, made absolutely sure of that…
“He knows what funk rhythms will not damage the coloraturas but stir up a wild fury of passions. The female singers, Annette Koch and Daniela Hennecke, benefit from this drive. The men in this quartet are allowed to venture a little farther into the field: Christian Wolf who turns an adagio into a grand, Mediterranean pop ballad, and Edson Cordeiro, a charismatic master of four octaves and high notes whose erotic ambivalence does not seem to have originated in Salzburg, after all…
“The band is allowed to alternate between forceful accents and gently swaying rhythms. However, Staribacher, prudently intent on consistency, never grants them the freedom of endless jazz improvisations. He is content with using the beat as an instructive element. This favorite of the Gods has never been easy to deal with or harmless…”
KLEINE ZEITUNG GRAZ
“No Sugar, Thanks”
“Sometimes we forget that way back then what is now elitist classical music was generally popular with everybody, young and old. Composer Wolfgang Staribacher removed Mozart’s “Il re pastore” from the altar of high culture and thoroughly revitalized it under the title of “König des Glücks”. Pepped up with accordion, drums, and amplifiers, Mozart’s music sounds again as if it could bust the charts…”
ZÜRICHER TAGESANZEIGER
“Mozart Now and Then”
“Staribacher and his crew basically played a typically Mozartesque game, that of colliding silences. “Il re pastore” is an extremely suitable model for that because in this work Mozart set up a confrontation between two musical worlds with a good deal of irony. The bucolic idiom of the shepherd Aminta and the courtly, stately tone of the Macedonian king who offers Aminta the throne clearly illustrate the incompatible world views of the two characters. That was as clear to Mozart’s contemporaries as the mixture of styles in “König des Glücks” is to the audiences of today.
“And the feelings and moods conveyed by the individual pieces are contemporary. When a voice is only contrasted by the drums, when loud rock sounds accompany the love song, rhythms are accented in unexpected places, or a cloud of Hammond organ sounds shrouds the structures, even the original tunes do not sound like 18th century music anymore… At the same time, it is astonishing every time how close, for instance, the accordion, violin, and bassoon get to the original character of the music. The passionate, exuberant overture alone justifies the experiment.”
ABENDZEITUNG MÜNCHEN
“Come On, Let’s Rock Amadeus”
“Near the ending, the words “Facere audere est” appear on the stylized tapestry-like backdrop: to do means to dare. The light goes down, the opera voice fades out, and the androgynous woman in black has come to the end of her search. She steps into the circle of the musicians who welcome her with gentle a cappella singing, and at last she can be happy because she dared to get so deeply involved with the music that the only thing that counts is the moment of listening…
“This is the risk in “König des Glücks” and the spectator must take the same step. Putting the project on the stage was in itself a courageous step, because it takes courage to re-write Mozart’s “Il re pastore” into a 90-minute performance that brings together classical music and rock, poetry and folk music. The first performance at the Festival of Vienna inspired the audience to enthusiastic standing ovations.
“The music still takes center stage, and Mozart’s conclusion that love is more important than social status changes into the message that loving authentic music is more important than clinging to conventions…”