BAROCKTAGE
At this year's BAROCKTAGE, which will be offering 28 events in ten days from November 5 to 14, the focus will be on the music culture of France. IDOMÉNÉE under the musical direction of Emmanuelle Haïm is the premiere of BAROCKTAGE on November 5, 2021. This rarity is the first ever stage work by André Campra, a central representative of the French Baroque opera, at the State Opera Unter den Linden and in Berlin be experience.
“Campra's music is shaped by the south of France, the connection to folk music and the Italian influence. I would call them sun drenched. IDOMÉNÉE illustrates this perfectly, because the unique personality of the composer, sometimes melancholy, sometimes exuberant, is evident throughout the piece,” says conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, who makes her house debut with this opera and acts as an 'advocate' for this almost never played Piece begins.
The tragédie lyrique, a total work of art made up of song, instrumental, and dance numbers, is staged by Àlex Ollé, one of the six artistic directors of the Barcelona-based theater collective La Fura dels Baus, who is directing the Berlin Staatsoper for the first time. It is the same material that later inspired Mozart for his Italian opera seria IDOMENEO, but in Campra's version, unlike Mozart, there is a tragic ending: The god of the sea only allows King Idoménée to survive a storm unscathed, if he promises to sacrifice first person he meets in a display of gratitude. When the victim turns out to be his son Idamante, Idoménée finds himself in a conflict between fatherly feelings and his sovereign and religious obligations. But in the end, he kills his own son.
The ensemble includes: Tassis Christoyannis in the title role, Samuel Boden, Chiara Skerath, and Hélène Carpentier. The ensemble Le Concert d'Astrée, founded by Emmanuelle Haïm and one of the leading early music ensembles from France, is playing for the first time at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and celebrating its 20th anniversary during the BAROCKTAGE in Berlin. Together with Emmanuelle Haïm, Simon Rattle will conduct the anniversary concert of Le Concert d'Astrée on November 8th with Magdalena Kožená, Lea Desandre, and Sandrine Piau as soloists.
The premiere is complemented by the resumption of Jean-Philippe Rameau's HIPPOLYTE ET ARICIE, with lighting design by Ólafur Elíasson and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Simon Rattle; and Christoph Willibald Gluck's ORFEO ED EURIDICE staged by Jürgen Flimm, with the Academy for Early Music conducted by Christophe Rousset.
In addition to music theater, the program includes a round table panel and 14 concerts with works by composers such as André Campra, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jean-Baptiste Lully, François Couperin, Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, and Marin Marais. The guests include Nikolaus Habjan, Ines Schüttengruber, Le Concert des Nations under Jordi Savall, Christophe Rousset with Les Talens Lyriques, Dorothee Oberlinger and the Ensemble 1700 together with Hille Perl and François Lazarevich, Ottavio Dantone and the Accademia Bizantina, Nicolas Altstaedt, Jean Rondeau, the academy for early music and the ensemble {oh!} Orkiestra Historyczna! under the direction of Martyna Pastuszka. As part of the BAROCKTAGE and LINDEN 21 there will also be a jazz lounge with students from the Jazz Institute Berlin and for a young audience there will be children's concerts with members of the Academy for Early Music as well as the mobile children's opera THESEUS’S JOURNEY INTO THE UNDERWORLD in cooperation with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. The BAROCKTAGE concerts take place in the Apollo Hall, the Great Hall, the Old Orchestra Rehearsal Hall and the Pierre Boulez Hall.