Franz Liszt Festival

"The overture to the Thieving Magpie was written in the attic of La Scala on the day of the premiere, where the director was holding me captive. I was guarded by four machinists who were under orders to take what I was writing page for page and throw it out the
window to the copyists who were waiting below. In the case that the manuscripts stopped coming, they were to throw me out the window." As unusual as the creation of the overture to Gioachino Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie" was, so well-known and -loved it is to today's audience. Johannes Kutrowatz has chosen it, together with Suppe's "Light Cavalry Overture", as the highlight of his programme. With it, he embarks on an extraordinary overture journey from the classical through the romantic to Liszt's Rakoczy March and Hungarian Rhapsody No.2.