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Austrian president opens Bregenz Festival
2009-07-22
BREGENZ (AFP) - Austrian President Heinz Fischer officially opened the 64th Bregenz Festival here Wednesday, which was scheduled to begin later in the evening with a new production of Verdi's "Aida". Fischer, Chancellor Werner Faymann and his deputy Josef Proell all attended the opening ceremony ahead of this evening's performance on Bregenz's famous Lake Stage, which is built on Lake Constance, bordered by Austria, Germany and Switzerland. This year's festival, which runs until August 23, features nearly 100 opera and concert performances. The centrepiece is a new production of "Aida" by British director Graham Vick on the spectacular outdoor Lake Stage. But there will also be a new production of the rarely-performed "Krol Roger" (King Roger) by Polish composer Karel Szymanowski (1882-1937) indoors in the adjacent Festspielhaus opera house, directed by British festival chief, David Pountney. Bregenz traditionally stages operatic blockbusters on the outdoor stage -- which was featured in the recent James Bond film "Quantum of Solace" starring Daniel Craig -- and lesser-known operatic repertoire indoors. The Lake Stage has seating for around 7,000 people and already many of the performances of "Aida" are sold out. Of the 210,000 tickets available for this year's festival, more than 80 percent were already sold, the organisers said.
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