Boundless passion, madness, and the fatal conflict between love and duty during the Trojan War: Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons, falls in love with the Greek hero Achilles, yet according to the law of her people, she must first defeat him in battle before she can marry him. In an ecstatic outburst of violence, Penthesilea tears Achilles apart and ultimately meets her own death. Best known as a composer of Lieder (songs in the German language), the Swiss artist Othmar Schoeck created an intoxicating 80-minute, one-act opera of extraordinary dramatic force, based on Heinrich von Kleist’s tragedy of the same name.
Its dark, intensely emotional score lies stylistically between late Romanticism and free tonality and features an exceptional orchestration with ten clarinets, percussion, and piano. Oscillating between melodrama and sung passages, the work conjures an archaic, haunting atmosphere. French director Mariame Clément sets the story within the abstract space of an anatomical theater, bringing the conflict between the pursuit of individual happiness and the constraints imposed by society into sharp focus. One hundred years after its world premiere, this gripping work returns in a new production at the Bregenzer Festspiele to mark the 250th anniversary of playwright Heinrich von Kleist’s birth.
21 July 2027 – 7.30 pm (Premiere)
25 July 2027 – 11.00 am
2 August 2027 – 7.30 pm
Festspielhaus, Großer Saal
Tickets as well as additional information for Penthesilea can be found here.
