Opera Camps

In the opera camps, music-loving children and teenagers aged 9 to 17 become immersed in the world
of opera and spend a week at Arenberg Castle with artists and experienced teaching professionals. Here they engage with material from great operas and conclude the week by performing their own interpretations of the works, assisted by members of the Vienna Philharmonic, in front of an audience.

On the opera Capriccio by Richard Strauss
For teenagers aged 13 to 16
Camp language: German, English

‘A Conversation Piece for Music’ was the subtitle Richard Strauss gave to his final opera Capriccio, finished in 1941. A poet and a composer vie for the affections of the young, arts-loving Countess Madeleine, and soon get mired in a spat over two issues. Which is the greater art: poetry or musical composition? And what is more crucial in an opera: the words or the music? For Madeleine, settling on an answer proves just as challenging as choosing between her two suitors — and so in the end the decision is left to the audience. By playing in the orchestra, singing and acting on stage, the young participants will explore the libretto and music of Capriccio, seeking answers to the opera’s central question in their own performance.

On the opera The Idiot by Mieczysław Weinberg
For teenagers aged 15 to 17
Camp language: German, English

Mieczysław Weinberg’s four-act opera The Idiot, based on the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, was written in 1986—7 but only premiered in its entirety in 2013. Prince Myshkin is trusting, honest and kind in his dealings with people, which provokes considerable confusion in a corrupt and deceitful society. Moreover, he is in love with two women and cannot decide between them. Despite not wanting to upset anybody, and even harbouring benevolent sentiments towards his rival Rogozhin, he is powerless to avert the impending tragedy.
The young participants in the opera camp will become familiar with the Polish-Soviet composer’s richly textured music and engage with the opera’s contradictory and complex characters, developing their own take on the piece through involvement in the orchestra, chorus, stage design and production.

On the opera Les Contes d’Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach
For children aged 9 to 12
Camp language: German, English

In his ‘fantastical opera’, the composer Jacques Offenbach makes the writer E.T.A. Hoffmann his protagonist. The story begins with Hoffmann in a lovesick depression about the mercurial Stella, with whom he is infatuated. The poet’s heartache sets him off on a flight of imagination in which he envisions Stella in three tales, with a very different persona in each. When they embark on this strange and surreal adventure, the children in the opera camp will not only encounter the bewitching doll Olympia, the unhappy singer Antonia and the irresistible Giulietta, but also the mad physicist Spalanzani, the devious Dr Miracle and the diabolical Dapertutto, who is determined to steal Hoffmann’s soul. Through their playing and singing of Offenbach’s lively music, they will mount a spirited staging of this wildly kaleidoscopic opera.