Least you have been living in a cave the last few months, the dates have now changed to those originally announced.
Saturday, 21.04.2012, 19:30 h
Playtime: 3 hrs | 1 interval
Opera in five acts
Poem by Richard Wagner, based on the novel Rienzi, or The Last of the Tribunes by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
First performed on 20th October 1842 in Dresden
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 24th January 2010
In German language with surtitles
Conductor
Sebastian Lang-Lessing
Director
Philipp Stölzl
Co-Regie
Mara Kurotschka
Stage-design
Ulrike Siegrist
Philipp Stölzl
Costume-design
Kathi Maurer
Ursula Kudrna
Video
FettFilm (Momme Hinrichs und Torge Møller)
Choir Conductor
William Spaulding
Rienzi
Torsten Kerl
Irene
Manuela Uhl
Steffano Colonna
Ante Jerkunica
Adriano
Daniela Sindram
Paolo Orsini
Krzysztof Szumanski
Cardinal Orvieto
Lenus Carlson
Baroncelli
Clemens Bieber
Cecco del Vecchio
Stephen Bronk
Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Rome in flames − it is the middle of the Fourteenth Century, the Pope rules from Avignon. In the Eternal City the rival noble families of the Colonna and Orsini are engaged in a bitter struggle for political dominance. A charismatic idealist seizes power, a man from the people and leader of the citizens’ party − Cola di Rienzi. Six decades after its successful Dresden premiere, a penniless “artist” finds his own political mission prefigured in Richard Wagner’s work about the rise and fall of a tribune of the people. His name: Adolf Hitler.
Director Philipp Stölzl interprets RIENZI as a parable of the dangerous tightrope walk between idealism, hubris and realpolitik. The republican dream of the people’s tribune ends in dictatorship and destruction. For him, in a series of symbols unique to himself, the stage becomes a multimedia experiment, set up to show the inevitable fate of a “hero.”
