Richard Strauss's Arabella
Florentine Klepper (stage director), Christian Thielemann (conductor) — With Renée Fleming (Arabella) and Thomas Hampson (Mandryka)
Cast
Florentine Klepper — Stage director
Martina Segna — Associate set designer
Anna Sofie Tuma — Costumes designer
Renée Fleming — Arabella
Thomas Hampson — Mandryka
Hanna-Elisabeth Müller — Zdenka
Albert Dohmen — Count Waldner
Program notes
Discover Richard Strauss’s Arabella with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson in the lead roles, staged by Florentine Klepper at the 2014 Salzburg Festival! This masterpiece of lyric comedy, the last in a long series of collaborations between Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is conducted here by the festival’s esteemed artistic director himself, maestro Christian Thielemann.
In a sumptuous fin-de-siècle decor designed by Martina Segna, Klepper's direction immerses us in the atmosphere of late 19th-century Vienna, further brought to life by the elegant costumes of Anna Sofie Tuma. And our impeccable vocal cast includes a pitch-perfect Renée Fleming in the title role giving a "master class of vocal style … simply amazing" (El País), a "reserved, delicate" Thomas Hampson (Opernglas) as her lover Mandryka, and Hanna-Elisabeth Müller as Arabella's sister Zdenka, who joins Fleming for the famous sisters' duet—"the most comforting soprano heaven" (FAZ).