The Egyptian Helena: Deutsche Oper Berlin
Over het evenement
Playing with illusion and reality Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal created a work with an occasional fairy tale sparkle.
The sorceress Aithra awaits the god Poseidon, her lover, but her waiting is in vain. Her attention is directed towards a passing ship on which a man [Menelaus] is about to stab a woman [Helen]. They are returning from Troy. Aithra unleashes a storm, the ship founders and Menelaus carries Helen ashore. Aithra's elf spirits tempt him away and lead him to believe that he has murdered Paris as well as Helen. He drinks Aithra's potion of oblivion. Now he can be seduced into thinking that the Helen for whom Troy was besieged was only a phantom and that his real wife was in Egypt during the war.
The couple, reconciled by Aithra, are brought to the Atlas region. There Helen's beauty again creates chaos. The Bedouin Prince Altaïr and one of his sons fall in love with her. Disaster occurs when, while hunting, Menelaus kills young Da‐Ud in the same way as he killed Paris. Aithra frees the couple. Helen wishes to live with Menelaus without any further duplicity. Can the appearance of their child, Hermione, help bring this about?
sung in German with English and German surtitles
Giet / Productie
conductor: Andrew Litton
director, stage‐design: Marco Arturo Marelli
costume‐design: Dagmar Niefind
chorus‐master: William Spaulding
Helena: Ricarda Merbeth
Menelas: Stefan Vinke
Aithra: Laura Aikin
Altair, Da‐Ud: Derek Welton
first servant of Aithra, second servant of Aithra: Adriana Ferfezka
first elf, second elf, third elf : Alexandra Hutton
the omniscient mussel: Ronnita Miller
choir: Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
orchestra: Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin
