Bassoonist

Igor Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat is a unique work: not an opera, but a play “to be read, to be played and to be danced”. Matthias Bundschuh’s staging of the music theatre can now be seen at this year’s Musikfest Berlin, following its much-lauded premiere at the 2025 Salzburg Festival in cooperation with the Salzburg Marionette Theatre. The marionettes for the production were designed by Georg Baselitz: Central to the painter, sculptor and graphic artist’s thinking was the idea that the marionettes should be created by the simplest means and reduced to their very essence. The distinguished artistic team is completed by the actor Dominique Horwitz as the speaker and a top-quality miniature orchestra that includes the violinist Isabelle Faust and her friends.

Salzburger Marionettentheater

Berliner Festspiele

From the realm of Russian fairy tales comes the story of a deserting soldier, the devil, a violin, and a king's daughter. When the devil is involved, the fairy tale rarely has a happy ending—and this is no different here. The original scenic concept, which was inspired both aesthetically and practically by fairgrounds and traveling theater, is reminiscent of ballads and ballad singers. The premiere of Histoire du soldat in 1918 in Lausanne not only marked an important moment in 20th-century Swiss theater history, but also made it a key work of musical modernism. Stravinsky, however, had already been considered a seminal figure after the turn of the century since the scandalous success of the ballet Le Sacre du printemps in Paris in May 1913.

The Story of the Soldier

Die Richard-Wagner-Akademie der Dresdner Musikfestspiele hat sich für dieses Programm mit drei außerordentlichen Kammermusikwerken beschäftigt. Im Zentrum steht dabei Richard Wagners Musik, die jedoch nicht ohne den Schatten seiner antisemitischen Haltung betrachtet werden kann, und im Gedenken an das Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs vor 80 Jahren mit dem Schicksal und dem Wirken zweier jüdischer Komponisten in Beziehung gesetzt wird.

Bassoonist

Giorgio Mandolesi

Events

Past events

Sep 19, 2026

Salzburger Marionettentheater · Berliner Philharmoniker

Jul 29 - Aug 3, 2025

The Story of the Soldier · Salzburger Festspiele

Future and recently performed repertoire

Bassoon in L'Histoire du soldat by Stravinsky

Salzburger Festspiele

Bassoon in Histoire du soldat by Stravinsky

Berliner Philharmoniker

About

Giorgio Mandolesi hasn't added a bio