Milestone Monrepos

»Cheerful Feelings« and »Thunder, Storm«—the weather set the stage for Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony

For months, our team—led by our KPP project manager Charly Freitag—had been working toward this moment, and now the time had finally come: Curtain up for the Monrepos Open Airs! Since Tuesday, our team had been hard at work on the grounds of the Monrepos Estate, hauling chairs, setting up the famous arched stage, running cables throughout the grounds, and setting up the artists’ dressing rooms—what can I say: it was all worth it! Although the scale was different from previous years, as soon as the setting sun, together with the string lights, enveloped the romantic lakeside castle in atmospheric darkness, that unique ambiance was immediately palpable once again.

A sea of picnic blankets covered the festival lawn, the reserved tables were beautifully set—complete with vases, candlesticks, and homemade treats—and the photo booth provided by our sponsor, the Kreissparkasse Ludwigsburg, was in constant use—wonderful! What could be more beautiful than gazing up at the sky on a balmy summer evening, listening to talented musicians, interrupted only by the chirping of crickets and the twittering of birds flying by (is that a night heron?)—testaments to the unique natural setting that were also reflected musically, particularly in Beethoven’s »Pastoral« on the third evening.
»Nature composes along with us«, as Harry Schmidt puts it in his review, and that applies not only to the venue or the program (the conductor for the second and third evenings, Jan Caeyers, even calls Beethoven the »first great ecologist«). It’s also true that nature had a hand in the weather at Monrepos Open Air I. Looking out over the audience dotted with umbrellas, rain capes, and rain jackets, one got the impression of being at the Hurricane Festival—perhaps even Wacken. You can be sure that our team, as well as the musicians of the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra of Reutlingen, were deeply disappointed by how the evening unfolded, which ended abruptly after intermission. We would have wished for a different outcome. At least we were able to celebrate properly with you at Monrepos Open Airs II and III—as beautiful, atmospheric, and harmonious as it should be!