Rehearsals for Penelope 2025 began regularly in October 2024: as part of artistic lessons in Klagenfurt and Venice, during individual rehearsals with our conductor Klaus Kuchling and our harpsichord professor Giulia Nuti, and during intensive rehearsal blocks together with the students from the Venice Conservatorio. A first rehearsal block already took place in November, the high strings rehearsed under the direction of our colleague Anna Morgoulets and the singers performed for the first time in Mittlerer Saal. Our stage director Stefanie Planton (assistant: Eva-Maria Fleischhacker) rehearsed the first act with the students, focusing primarily on the action-packed recitatives. Love, jealousy, worry, loyalty, greed for power and communicative misunderstandings were developed in music and gesture on stage. Under the inspiring and creative direction of Stefanie Planton (stage direction) and Klaus Kuchling (conducting), the students learn to convey the respective plot to the audience in a musically and gesturally differentiated way in order to immerse them completely in the wonderful world of baroque opera. Acting and making music together brings all together – within just a few hours, the students from Klagenfurt and Venice have grown together as a team.