HOTEL METAMORPHOSIS • SALZBURG FESTSPIELE 2025
★★★★★★
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
REVIEW HOTEL METAMORPHOSIS: BARRIE KOSKY STRIKES AGAIN
Barrie Kosky strikes again! After three years of preparation, the greatest director of our time has unleashed a masterpiece of an opera performance in Salzburg with Hotel Metamorphosis, a deeply original fusion of Vivaldi’s rocking Baroque music and the Renaissance icon, the poet Ovid’s interpretations of ancient myths. All this is performed by a top-class cast of singers, including Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky and Nadezhda Karyazina, accompanied by sophisticated set design and utterly astonishing video art.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
With this so-called opera pasticcio, Kosky seems to have created a new classic with Hotel Metamorphosis, which has already received rave reviews from the international opera press, and which I cannot wait to see again.
The performance is essentially a deeply original deluxe buffet of Vivaldi’s best melodies, arias and instrumental sequences, which form the soundtrack to five selected myths and stories from the Roman poet Ovid’s ancient masterpiece Metamorphoses, written in the year 8. You read that right. The year eight.
A weaving together of Greek and Roman mythological material, collected in 15 books about love, power, lust, desire, guilt, shame, punishment, death, indeed life itself. It was “rediscovered” during the Renaissance and has since inspired visual artists, writers and philosophers with its humanised interpretations and bizarre, open-to-interpretation points.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Kosky and his creative team have selected and adapted five stories, which are staged in a luxury hotel room where we experience the narratives with various actors coming and going – and a wild array of set pieces, costumes, props, sophisticated lighting design and, above all, incredible video graphics from the Austrian production company Rocafilm.
Check out the link and see their mind-blowing designs for Hotel Metamorphosis and other performances. It’s ABSOLUTELY amazing.
The same goes for the stories, which I’ll have to give you a quick summary of.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Pygmalion has created a female robot so perfect that he falls in love with her. The miracle happens. The robot comes to life and falls in love with her creator!
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
The weaver Arachine falls out with the goddess Minerva, who punishes her harshly but sophisticatedly by turning her into a spider. There you go, now you can weave as much as you like.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Myhrra is deeply in love with her father. He categorically rejects his beautiful daughter, but is tricked one dark night when her mother is out and he sleeps with his mistress – or so he thinks. Myhrra becomes pregnant and commits suicide.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
The nymph Echo has fallen in love with Narcissus, who can only love himself. Despairing over her unrequited love, Echo dissolves into nothing more than a sound.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Orpheus has lost his beloved wife Eurydice to the underworld for the second time. The misfortunes continue when he is soon murdered by Dionysus’ mercenaries, who tear his limbs off one by one.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Hotel Metamorphosis is a bold, innovative and ambitious production that scores the rare top rating of six stars from GOT TO SEE THIS. Pray that it will soon be revived in one of the leading opera houses, or perhaps even become a repertoire performance at the Komische Oper in Berlin.
