Mefistofele - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Mefistofele
Date:
Time:
Price class:
Location:
06.10.2024 , Sunday
19:00
B
Dresden, Semperoper, Theaterplatz 2, 01067 Dresden
Seating plan
Opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue libretto by the composer based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust
Premiere September 28, 2024
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Do people need salvation? Between heavenly choirs of angels with radiant brass aureoles and hellish cauldrons with shadows of tinkling bells, the spheres in the sound space of the opera “Mefistofele” take urgent shape. The Faust material has been worked on in all arts for centuries and examines the question of the tension between ideas of God, the devil, men and women that dominate the world. Who seduces whom to do what, and how can redemption come about?
Arrigo Boito had a dual literary and musical talent and made history as a gifted librettist with text books for Faccio, Ponchielli and, above all, Verdi. For “Mefistofele,” his only completed opera, he translated the text from both parts of Goethe's Faust tragedy and wrote his own libretto. In a form that already refers to modern times, Boito assembles, collages, sharpens and perspectives the Faust material for his opera, which has been in the canon since the 1875 version and allows a double look at the well-known story about love, knowledge and striving. The figure of the omnipresent Mefistofele breaks through the timeless game of human existence with irony, wit and cold distance, and Boito lets him literally whistle at God and the world from a seemingly hellish perspective. Is the “eternal feminine” still moving forward? What form does grace take today? Director Eva-Maria Höckmayr asks these questions in her debut at the Semperoper Dresden.
Subject to change.
Premiere September 28, 2024
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Do people need salvation? Between heavenly choirs of angels with radiant brass aureoles and hellish cauldrons with shadows of tinkling bells, the spheres in the sound space of the opera “Mefistofele” take urgent shape. The Faust material has been worked on in all arts for centuries and examines the question of the tension between ideas of God, the devil, men and women that dominate the world. Who seduces whom to do what, and how can redemption come about?
Arrigo Boito had a dual literary and musical talent and made history as a gifted librettist with text books for Faccio, Ponchielli and, above all, Verdi. For “Mefistofele,” his only completed opera, he translated the text from both parts of Goethe's Faust tragedy and wrote his own libretto. In a form that already refers to modern times, Boito assembles, collages, sharpens and perspectives the Faust material for his opera, which has been in the canon since the 1875 version and allows a double look at the well-known story about love, knowledge and striving. The figure of the omnipresent Mefistofele breaks through the timeless game of human existence with irony, wit and cold distance, and Boito lets him literally whistle at God and the world from a seemingly hellish perspective. Is the “eternal feminine” still moving forward? What form does grace take today? Director Eva-Maria Höckmayr asks these questions in her debut at the Semperoper Dresden.
Subject to change.