Charlottenburg Palace: Polifemo — Barockes Hoftheater

About the Event

Step back into history and experience the grandeur of Baroque music at the beautiful Schloss Charlottenburg — Orangerie in Berlin.

Look forward to an evening of musical theatre in the Great Orangery of Charlottenburg Palace that celebrates the joie de vivre and fun of the musical and theatrical in the Baroque era!
The evening, directed by Prof. Claus Unzen, takes you back to the time around 1750 in the Palace Theatre — right into the middle of the dress rehearsal of a musical‐theatrical memorial service for Queen Sophie Charlotte, at whose time there was an eventful artistic life at the Prussian court:
Excitedly, the play's director and castrato Claudio and his ensemble present the course of the planned memorial service to the courtly patron and his wife — after all, the patron's goodwill for him depends on it.

After ravishing coloratura arias and music by Handel, Vivaldi and other composers, the highlight will be the opera 'Polifemo' by Giovanni Bononcini, which you will experience in its own version by the chamber ensemble of the Berlin Residence Orchestra conducted by Alexandra Rossmann — for the first time in the place where it was premiered with great success in 1702 in the presence of Queen Sophie Charlotte.
In the opera, which revolves around the love between Acis & Galatea, the cyclops Polifemo as well as magical gods and mythical creatures bring about wondrous transformations that bring passion, jealousy and pain to all involved — in the final chorus, love is compared to the tumbling flight of a butterfly that burns on it.

Last but not least, you will be amused by an interlude in the style of the Commedia dell'Arte, in which the tragedies of the court theatre are parodied in a most coarse and hilarious way, as was customary at the time.
Look forward to a passionate and sensual evening at court!