Idomeneo

In the organizer's words:

Dramma per musica in three acts
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Giambattista Varesco
in Italian with German surtitles

Idomeneo, a war returnee, is caught in a storm off the coast of his homeland. In exchange for his life, he promises the sea god a huge sacrifice: the first person he meets on land. The fact that his own son Idamante, of all people, runs into him on the beach sparks conflicts of unimagined proportions. Who is in charge: the gods or the humans? The war-traumatized royal daughters Ilia from Troy and Agamemnon's daughter Elettra are caught up in the maelstrom of extreme emotions. Both love Idamante and are prepared to go to extremes.

With "Idomeneo" in 1781, the just 25-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart breathes new life into the opera seria form, which had been thought dead. He experimented with orchestral colors, special demands on the vocal possibilities of his ensemble, upgraded the use of the chorus and turned the ancient figures into real characters of flesh and blood. In doing so, he tells a highly modern story of fatherly love, sonly duty and the supposed inevitability of divinely ordained fate: a hymn to peace and humanity.

Kobie van Rensburg's original and fascinating stage aesthetic, which plays with video recordings and AI, has already inspired audiences in Ulm with "Lacrimae" and "Winterreise".