22 roses for director Michi Gaigg and 30 years of the Danube Festival

A visibly moved Michi Gaigg received “the first of 22 roses” for 22 years as director of the Danube Festival in Strudengau yesterday from consultant Walter Edtbauer, President of the Kulturforum Donauland Strudengau. For her 30th anniversary, the conductor from Schörfling says goodbye to the early music stage with counterpoints as director. “It was such a wonderful, wonderful, fruitful and inspiring collaboration,” says the 66-year-old, thanking the “best team.”

Speech by Andrea Winkler

This time the centerpiece of the opera is Joseph Haydn’s “The Desert Island”, with which director Manuela Kloibmüller opens “a beautiful audio book of mental states”. In German, it’s about a kidnapping, a love that was thought lost – and above all about “highs and lows of feelings such as despair, hatred, but also hope and love, which are supported by the orchestra with imaginatively contrasting figures,” says harpsichordist Erich Traxler , who is the musical director and is looking forward to working with the “L’Orfeo Baroque Orchestra, which is trained in the baroque style”. 30 children and young people can once again work on their version of the opera in the opera workshop (July 15 to 19). Director Kloibmüller can also be seen as an accordionist in a groovy duo with saxophonist Wolfgang Weissengruber at the Hauer family’s Vierkanthof in Ardagger Stift (August 11).

The opening speech will be given by Freistadt author Andrea Winkler. “The Wave Quartet” opens musically with “Baroque to Tango” on four marimbas (July 26). “The anniversary program is peppered with counterpoints,” says Michi Gaigg, referring to the commissioned work by the Lithuanian composer Juta Pranulyté, who was born in 1993: The Lombardini Quartet is launching her first string quartet (August 4, Dornach Castle).

Another premiere by Alexander Koller and Thomas Mandel aka KollerMandel is an experimental choral work embedded in pieces by the annual regents Anton Bruckner (200th birthday) and Arnold Schönberg (150th birthday).

The “editta braun company” invites you to dance at the Stadttheater Grein (July 30): The solo performance “Paula” with Iris Heitzinger is inspired by Marlen Haushofer’s novel “Die Wand”. Fine art by Willibald Katteneder is waiting again at the Großdöllnerhof Rechberg. An inclusion project, this time a reading, has been a fixed part of the Danube Festival for eight years, with 72 percent of the festival’s own funding.

Program and tickets: 07268 / 26 857, www.donau-festwochen.at

Michi Gaigg in portrait: page 4