When pianist Javier Perianes, himself Andalusian, plays southern Spanish-inspired pieces by Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados and Isaac Albéniz, most impressively in those quieter episodes where a sweetly weary, dusty, sweltering atmosphere mutes the tones;
or when the flamenco matriarch María Pagés and her company celebrate wildly painful, at the same time strictly ritualized and here purely female-mediated eroticism – then Seville comes very close: the city that was one of the largest in the sixteenth century and also the richest thanks to Spanish overseas trade the world was.
The characteristics of that time, an exquisite and explosive mixture of business spirit and sense of mission, intoxicated love of life and humble piety, continue to have an effect on the cityscape and spirit of the community to this day.
Above all, however, they have made the city and its surroundings a place of yearning fascination for many artists, especially opera composers, over the centuries.
In her very personal foreword to this year's performances, which are entirely dedicated to this city, Salzburg's Whitsun Festival director Cecilia Bartoli writes of 153 musical theater pieces that will be played in and around Seville.
Paris, Vienna or Rome may still have a few more offers as locations for musical tragedies and comedies - in the eternal music stage canon none is represented as often as the southern Spanish metropolis with "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni", "Fidelio", " Carmen” and of course Rossini's “Barber of Seville”.
Impressive solo performances
Curiously, none of the composers saw Seville themselves.
Everyone received the genius loci, so to speak, by remote transmission - which immediately associated the current visitor with the equally cheeky, cheerful and enigmatic story of an allegedly wind-produced virgin pregnancy, which, accompanied by Christina Pluhar's "L'Arpeggiata" ensemble, was accompanied by the stunningly spirited, equally sensitive as well as garrulous Luciana Mancini.
It was just one of many rousing solo performances in this program about the interactions between the Spanish culture of conquerors and missionaries and the indigenous traditions of Latin America;
Perhaps the most astounding came from the Venezuelan guest performer Rafael Mejias, who created breathtakingly artistic rhythmic knots with nothing more than two rattling maracas - a performance that was relaxed and cheerful despite all concentration, as was the case for the whole episode, which was at times tongue-in-cheek, at times erotically charged, with its combination of singing, Dance, action and instrumental was characteristic, where sounds from the "Siglo de Oro" found themselves together organically with folklore and popular art.
In Seville itself, shaded by palm trees and right next to the wall of the Alcázar Garden, you can visit the alleged "Balcón de Rosina" along with the adjoining inn - a homage to the Rossini opera that still carries the city's name around the world today: a life-oriented place, as if made for serene, relaxed, stimulatingly enjoyable passages of time.
Of course, such a sun-bright Mediterranean spirit is hardly that of our current day, and in the Salzburg production it was conveyed more through the transparent, sensitive playing of the Musiciens du Prince – Monaco and their boss Gianluca Capuano, who is well versed in bel canto, than through Rolando Villazón’s direction, which conveyed the plot into the twilight backstage rooms of an early Hollywood film production company.