Live animals and baking bread feature in Messiaen's `Saint François d’Assise' at Salzburg Festival

SALZBURG, Austria (AP) — Philippe Sly worked up a sweat to prepare for the daunting title role in “Saint François d’Assise,” composer Olivier Messiaen’s crowning achievement. Sly moved into the Kapuzinerkloster, a Capuchin monastery about 1,550 feet (470 meters) above sea level, 7 1/2 weeks ahead of the Aug. 4 opening of Romeo Castellucci’s new Salzburg Festival production timed for the 800th anniversary year of St.

Sly climbs the steps from the city center or walks up a road several times daily and sleeps without air conditioning in a summer of record European heat waves. “Just being here has been extremely important because I’m going to Lauds every morning,” the 37-year-old Canadian bass-baritone said in a reference to Franciscan morning prayers. “I’ve taken on all these habits that they have here and now I long for it,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press outside the monastery on the morning after the first performance.

I’m excited to come back to the monastery and be present for Vespers or for the Eucharist Mass.” Messiaen, a prolific 20th century French composer, spent nearly a decade creating his only opera, which premiered in 1983, nine years before his death. His score for the 6-hour, 20-minute, eight-tableaux opus (including a pair of one-hour intermissions) depicts episodes in St. Francis’ spiritual journey, including his encounter with a leper and his sermon to birds.

The score calls for two raised percussion sections on either side of the stage and three ondes Martenots. The electronic instruments figure prominently in the 45-minute “Sermon to the Birds,” the sixth tableau, reflecting Messiaen’s devotion to his Catholic faith. Conductor Maxime Pascal leads 120 musicians and a chorus of 90 in six performances through Aug.

A second conductor in the pit waves a baton capped by a white light, signaling percussion beats at odds with the other instruments’ markings. “It’s 2,500 pages of music, sometimes very, very complex,” Pascal said. It’s a succession of infinity of moments and so each moment, it can be short or long, but each moment is like a work by itself.” The staging features a peacock, sheep and baking bread Castellucci’s production features a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, a female peacock and seven sheep who romp across the stage near the end as the roof opens at the F…

Francis’ death.Sly climbs the steps from the city center or walks up a road several times daily and sleeps without air conditioning in a summer of record European heat waves.“Just being here has been extremely important because I’m going to Lauds every morning,” the 37-year-old Canadian bass-baritone said in a reference to Franciscan morning prayers.“I’ve taken on all these habits that they have here and now I long for it," he said in an interview with The Associated Press outside the monastery on the morning after the first performance.