Alceste

The story of the sacrifice of the Queen of Pherai has been told and read in many different ways over the 2,500 years since Euripides' tragedy Alcestis . Does Alceste die out of pure love, as the libretto to Gluck's opera suggests? Does she bow to a patriarchal order? Or is the decision rather an act of self-empowerment? Milo Rau's artistic work is always set in the context of the political realities and conflicts of our time. The question of sacrifice as the surrender of one's own life leads the artist to Ukraine: in the context of the brutal war, which marked its fourth anniversary during the preparation of the production, the question of the decision to give one's own life appears from a new perspective. In close collaboration with the conductor Titus Engel and various Ukrainian artists, Rau thus creates a new Alceste for our time, which, in addition to the topos of sacrifice, also confronts the second major subject of the work and myth: the possibility of a triumph of life over death.

Tragédie-opéra in three acts
Libretto by Marius-François-Louis Gand Lebland, Bailli Du Roullet after Ranieri de' Calzabigi

by Christoph Willibald Gluck