Jacquelyn Wagner

co-production with the Teatro Real (Madrid).

For Theodora, a princess who has converted to Christianity, earthly existence means nothing compared to the promise of eternal salvation. She disobeys the command issued by the Roman Emperor to worship Jupiter, preferring instead to die in the name of freedom of religion. The globally celebrated countertenor and Handel specialist Bejun Mehta debuts as a conductor at MusikTheater an der Wien with the La Folia Barockorchester.

Prompted by Don Alfonso, a cynical old philosopher, two young idealists decide to put their lovers’ fidelity to the test. But love will teach them a bitter lesson: those who believe themselves phoenixes and goddesses will discover the desires of the flesh… In 1790, one year after the French Revolution, in what would be their final collaboration, Mozart and Da Ponte conduct a scientific investigation of love. With six singers doubled by six dancers, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker depicts the desire which unites and separates human beings, like the interactions between atoms that, once broken, make new bonds possible

Quel est ce feu qui pousse Don Giovanni à séduire, à soumettre, à conquérir les femmes une à une, avec la fièvre et la froideur du prédateur ferrant sa proie, à poursuivre à travers elles un obscur objet qui toujours se dérobe à lui ? Pour sa deuxième collaboration avec Da Ponte, Mozart devait marquer au fer rouge l’histoire de l’opéra et hanter à jamais la culture européenne. Kierkegaard nous invitait à écouter dans ce Dissolu puni « le chuchotement de la tentation, le tourbillon de la séduction, le silence de l’instant ». Le cycle Mozart-Da Ponte se poursuit avec Don Giovanni confié à Ivo Van Hove. Habitué à interroger le sens politique des œuvres, le metteur en scène réalise, après Boris Godounov, sa deuxième mise en scène pour l’Opéra de Paris.

Webers great heroic-romantic opera Euryanthe premiered in Vienna in 1823. It concerns the wronged Euryanthe, victim of a plot to establish her unfaithfulness, but her love imbues her with colossal strength which Weber characterizes with acute psychological insight. Through-composed and dispensing with spoken dialogue, its chivalric plot provides opportunities for a series of arias, ariosos, duets, cavatinas and choruses that contain some of his greatest operatic music. This production employs the operas original version with a few, very minor cuts.