An unprecedented double bill of one-act operas—Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Strauss’s Elektra—brilliantly unites comedy and tragedy in a devastating portrayal of dysfunctional families at the Heidenheim Opera Festival.

One horrific family celebrates the birthday of their deceased patriarch and reveals their collective greed during the reading of his will. An even more horrific and violently entrenched family circles each other warily, each member thirsting for the other’s demise. The official motto of this year’s Heidenheim Opera Festival is “Laughter and Tears,” which perfectly suits Puccini’s riotous Gianni Schicchi and Strauss’s blood-drenched modern Greek tragedy Elektra. Yet the thematic parallels between Puccini’s 1918 satyr play and Strauss’s 1909 mythological drama are striking: both center around a diseased family dynamic. Contrary to classical dramaturgy, which would begin with tragedy followed by a comedic “relief” (as Shakespeare taught us), the order is reversed in Swabia: comedy first, then tragedy.

“Money Makes You Horny”
Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, usually the final third of Il Trittico, opens the evening in the Festspielhaus. Director Vera Nemirova delivers a delicious twist to this furious farce of inheritance scheming, providing a hidden thematic bridge between the two operas. The Donati family is more than merely despicable—it is a depraved circus of greed and perversion. The deceased Buoso Donati, lonely in old age, celebrates his birthday alone, transforming Tanti auguri a te(“Happy Birthday to you”) into a self-directed serenade: “Tanti auguri a me.” Devices at his bedside serve both to ease his ailments and support his specific sexual proclivities. Upon writing his will, he appears to collapse dead at the table. The family, usually absent, arrives in feigned grief but quickly starts searching for the will. When it is finally found, they are horrified: Buoso has left everything to a monastery.

Inheritance Through Seduction
Enter the clever outsider Gianni Schicchi (bass-baritone Rory Musgrave): impersonating the dying Buoso in front of a notary, he rewrites the will, granting himself the prime assets as Buoso’s “dearest friend” and giving the family only scraps. Before that, the perverse relatives attempt to seduce Schicchi to secure a favorable share of the inheritance—removing more and more clothing in the process.

Masterful Comic Timing
Director Vera Nemirova demonstrates masterful comedic timing, right up to the punchline: Buoso returns, very much alive, to the house of his true beloved Schicchi. The two elderly men, a gay couple, can finally live out their desires in peace. Costume designer Cristina Lelli outfits the cast in an absurd mix of flower power, S&M, gothic, and bourgeois flair.
And at the helm, Marcus Bosch leads the Stuttgart Philharmonic with razor-sharp phrasing, crisp articulation, and unsentimental motifs that elevate the comedic craftsmanship to a high art. The fast-paced staging and the ensemble’s exuberant performance are perfectly mirrored in the music’s drive. Puccini’s biting comedy is revealed as the little sister of Verdi’s Falstaff, both composers indulging in self-mocking irony.

The "comic relief" of Schicchi sets the stage for a new way of listening to the following Elektra. A chorus chanting Agamemnon, wielding axes, leads the audience from the Festspielhaus to the haunting Knight’s Hall in the ruins of Hellenstein Castle.

Singing Sculptures from Ancient Greece
Now comes the second horrible family. Elektra mourns her murdered father Agamemnon, lovingly cleaning the stones covering the axe used to butcher him in the now-iconic bathtub onstage. The red floor speaks of the “eternal blood” spilled and to be spilled. Elektra (Christian Libor) oscillates between her shrine of memory and the site of the killing, dragging her hopeful sister into the tub as a co-conspirator in revenge. Nemirova eschews sensationalism in favor of empathy, replacing violent action with loaded glances and statuesque presence against the castle walls.

Electrifying Reinterpretation of Strauss’s Score
While Nemirova appeals to our compassion for the heroine, Festival Director Marcus Bosch, with the Stuttgart Philharmonic, delivers a thrilling reinterpretation of Strauss’s score, often reduced to bleak, depressive tones.
Under his taut, disciplined baton—eschewing false sentiment and exaggerated tempo shifts—Strauss’s music becomes lithe, silky, even dance-like, constantly reminding us that the composer of Elektra was also the creator of Der Rosenkavalier. His brisk, speech-rhythm-inspired tempos bring crystalline clarity to the text (even in the servants' opening scene), turning Elektra into a conversation piece as much as a tragedy.
Bosch’s interpretation allows glimmers of hope and brightness to emerge amid the Freudian darkness: his Elektra is not only a bitter dance of vengeance but a search for a way out of the endless cycle of violence.

Chrysothemis, sung by Tineke van Ingelgem, shines as a beacon of this alternative path. Even Elektra, who ascends the steps toward an open ending, might find her moment of emancipation. And Katerina Hebelkova’s terrifying Klytämnestra is more than a monster—she is a mother, deserving (but denied) a second chance.
What a moving and magnificent festival night in the Swabian Alps.

By Peter Krause

Ph © Franca Wrage