Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen
Great tragic opera in five acts
Poetry of Richard Wagner after the novel
Rienzi, or The Last of the Tribunes by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
World premiere on October 20, 1842 in Dresden
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on January 24, 2010
In German with German and English surtitles
3 hours / one break
Rome is dominated by the particular interests and clan struggles of hostile noble families. At the head of the Civic Party, the charismatic idealist Rienzi fights for freedom and justice, greatness and peace. He enjoys the trust of the Church and the people. He rejects the royal dignity, but takes over with "great thoughts in the head and in the heart" (Wagner) the office of the people's tribune. He wants to return the inner peace and his former greatness to Rome, which he loves like a bride. Supported and deployed by the Holy Church, he promises to protect the rights of the people alongside a Legislative Senate. But the nobility has only subordinated itself to the new political system and its representative. A first attempt of assassination of Nobili fails, the assassins are facing the death penalty. Adriano, son of one of the conspirators and the sister of Rienzi's lover, gets caught between the fronts. He asks Rienzi for mercy for his father. He finally woos the people to support his decision to let the assassins alive, thus turning away the death penalty. But the peace is short. The oath of allegiance that Rienzi demands of the pardoned Nobili, they break and instigate new disturbances, which this time can only be beaten on both sides with a high toll of blood. The loyalty of the people to his tribune is crumbling. When Rienzi wants to extend Rome's claim to power beyond the city limits, the church turns away from him. The dam is broken, the rescuer becomes a scapegoat. The people call for the stoning and burning of their former hope. Before his death, Rienzi curses Rome and threatens to bring it to ruin.
Wagner's breakthrough came with RIENZI, his fourth opera. Long a downright popular work, RIENZI almost completely disappeared after the Second World War from the game plans. Hitler in the form of the title hero had made close references to his own already lived but also the planned biography and interpreted a performance he had attended in Linz in 1906 (or 1907) as an initial spark for future activity. The posterity distanced itself from this work, as they could not help but recognize these parallels, which manifested less in biographical details than in common linguistic topoi, a comprehensive claim to power and redemption and a potential for violence that quickly into a boundless destructiveness to overturn threatens.
Wagner, who found his subject in the novel Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "Rienzi, or The Last of the Tribunes," is musically and thematically still grounded in the tradition of the French grand opera with RIENZI, which he surpasses and overcomes, both in terms of sound and content would like to. The romantic idea of the lonely, superhuman hero who perishes because of the world's lack of understanding is already laid out in RIENZI. It forms the nucleus for the cosmos unfolded by Wagner in his later work, trained in man, then mythically exalted.
"Beware, I implore you to destroy the glorious appearance of your glory with your own hands. No man but you alone can tear down the foundations of your deeds; you can destroy, because you have laid the ground - the builder is always the best destroyer of your own works. You know by what ways you have risen to glory; You descend the same paths again, and of course the descent is easier ...
Remember, as long as it is time, again and again, as the youth says in Terence. Please consider with the utmost zeal, what you are doing, carefully examine yourself, consider, and do not deceive yourself, who you are, who you have been, where you come from, where you go, how far you can go, without the freedom violate what position and office you have accepted, what hope you have set on you and what you have promised: then you will not see yourself as lord of the republic, but as their servant. "(Petrarch to Rienzo, Genoa 1347)
Subject may change.
Poetry of Richard Wagner after the novel
Rienzi, or The Last of the Tribunes by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
World premiere on October 20, 1842 in Dresden
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on January 24, 2010
In German with German and English surtitles
3 hours / one break
Rome is dominated by the particular interests and clan struggles of hostile noble families. At the head of the Civic Party, the charismatic idealist Rienzi fights for freedom and justice, greatness and peace. He enjoys the trust of the Church and the people. He rejects the royal dignity, but takes over with "great thoughts in the head and in the heart" (Wagner) the office of the people's tribune. He wants to return the inner peace and his former greatness to Rome, which he loves like a bride. Supported and deployed by the Holy Church, he promises to protect the rights of the people alongside a Legislative Senate. But the nobility has only subordinated itself to the new political system and its representative. A first attempt of assassination of Nobili fails, the assassins are facing the death penalty. Adriano, son of one of the conspirators and the sister of Rienzi's lover, gets caught between the fronts. He asks Rienzi for mercy for his father. He finally woos the people to support his decision to let the assassins alive, thus turning away the death penalty. But the peace is short. The oath of allegiance that Rienzi demands of the pardoned Nobili, they break and instigate new disturbances, which this time can only be beaten on both sides with a high toll of blood. The loyalty of the people to his tribune is crumbling. When Rienzi wants to extend Rome's claim to power beyond the city limits, the church turns away from him. The dam is broken, the rescuer becomes a scapegoat. The people call for the stoning and burning of their former hope. Before his death, Rienzi curses Rome and threatens to bring it to ruin.
Wagner's breakthrough came with RIENZI, his fourth opera. Long a downright popular work, RIENZI almost completely disappeared after the Second World War from the game plans. Hitler in the form of the title hero had made close references to his own already lived but also the planned biography and interpreted a performance he had attended in Linz in 1906 (or 1907) as an initial spark for future activity. The posterity distanced itself from this work, as they could not help but recognize these parallels, which manifested less in biographical details than in common linguistic topoi, a comprehensive claim to power and redemption and a potential for violence that quickly into a boundless destructiveness to overturn threatens.
Wagner, who found his subject in the novel Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "Rienzi, or The Last of the Tribunes," is musically and thematically still grounded in the tradition of the French grand opera with RIENZI, which he surpasses and overcomes, both in terms of sound and content would like to. The romantic idea of the lonely, superhuman hero who perishes because of the world's lack of understanding is already laid out in RIENZI. It forms the nucleus for the cosmos unfolded by Wagner in his later work, trained in man, then mythically exalted.
"Beware, I implore you to destroy the glorious appearance of your glory with your own hands. No man but you alone can tear down the foundations of your deeds; you can destroy, because you have laid the ground - the builder is always the best destroyer of your own works. You know by what ways you have risen to glory; You descend the same paths again, and of course the descent is easier ...
Remember, as long as it is time, again and again, as the youth says in Terence. Please consider with the utmost zeal, what you are doing, carefully examine yourself, consider, and do not deceive yourself, who you are, who you have been, where you come from, where you go, how far you can go, without the freedom violate what position and office you have accepted, what hope you have set on you and what you have promised: then you will not see yourself as lord of the republic, but as their servant. "(Petrarch to Rienzo, Genoa 1347)
Subject may change.
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