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Heroine

Hindemith, Bartók, Honegger

06 – 12 Oct 2024

To open the season, this evening, consecrated to the transgression of things forbidden, combines  three rare works in a single artistic endeavour. Sancta Susanna streaked through the skies of opera like a meteor one evening in March 1922. Driven by a burning desire, a nun strips naked and embraces the statue of Christ. This thirty-minute work, never performed, caused a scandal when it premiered at the Frankfurt Opera and provoked the fury of the Church.

The sultry deeds of Sancta Susanna are matched by Judith's thirst for knowledge: Bluebeard's Castle is a disquieting “huis clos”, a confrontation between Bluebeard and his wife who obliges her lover to open the doors of his castle one by one, to the point of no return... To accompany this plunge into the unknown, Bartók composed a spellbinding nocturnal score, imbued with fantasised Hungarian folklore.

Honegger's Danse des morts, another little-known if not unknown work, completes the evening. In this choral work composed to a poem by Claudel, the dead become a joyful and subversive community. The composer plays with the frontiers between scholarly and popular music, incorporating unexpected songs such as Sur le pont d'Avignon into his inferno.

Once upon a time...
Where did it happen?
Outside or inside?
It's an old story,
but what does it mean,
ladies and gentlemen?
You hear a familiar song.
You look at me and I look at you.
The curtain rises...
Or is it just
just our eyelids?
Blubeard's Castle

Winner of the European Opera Director Prize, Anthony Almeida presents a woman at three different stages of her life. Each piece depicts one of the social rituals - baptism, marriage and death - that punctuate her existence. This modern-day heroine becomes the common thread in this fiery triptych.

Calendar

  • Sun. 06 October 2024
    15:00
    Opéra national de Lorraine
  • Tue. 08 October 2024
    20:00
    Opéra national de Lorraine
  • Thu. 10 October 2024
    20:00
    Opéra national de Lorraine
  • Sat. 12 October 2024
    20:00
    Opéra national de Lorraine

Information

Duration
2 h 45 with interval

Prices
5 — 85 €

Lyrical pieces in German, Hungarian and French, with surtitles
All audiences from 13 years

Introduction to the performance
45 minutes before the start of the performance (free of charge, upon presentation of ticket). 

The performance on Sunday 6 October includes a workshop for young audiences. For more information, click here.
The performance on Thursday 10 October has a special price for students and/or under-30s: €10 for the best seats! 

Cast

Sancta Susanna, Paul Hindemith
Bluebeard's Castle, Béla Bartók
Dance of the Dead, Arthur Honegger

New production

Opéra national de Lorraine


ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS OF THE OPÉRA NATIONAL DE LORRAINE
Musical direction

Sora Elisabeth Lee

Choir direction

Guillaume Fauchère

Assistant musical direction

Silvina Peruglia Nogues

Language coaching

Borbála Szuromi


Stage direction

Anthony Almeida

Set design and costumes

Basia Bińkowska

Lighting

Franck Evin

Collaboration in movement

Rosabel Huguet

Assistant stage director

Alixe Durand Saint Guillain

 


SANCTA SUSANNA
Opera in one act

first performed at the Frankfurt Opera on 26 March 1922

Libretto

August Stramm

Music

Paul Hindemith


Sancta Susanna  

Anaïk Morel

Klementia

Rosie Aldridge

A maid 

Apolline Raï-Westphal

A valet 

Yannis François

An old nun

Séverine Maquaire


Bluebeard's Castle
Opera in one act

first performed at the Hungarian Royal Opera House on 24 May 1918

Libretto 

Béla Balázs, based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault

Music

Béla Bartók


Bluebeard 

Joshua Bloom

Judith 

 Rosie Aldridge 


Dance of the Dead
Oratorio

first performed in Basel on 2 March 1940

Libretto

Paul Claudel, based on biblical texts

Music 

Arthur Honegger


Alto

Anaïk Morel

Soprano

Apolline Raï-Westphal

Baritone

Yannis François

A woman

Claire Wauthion

A girl

Salma-Faïhrouz Jacquot-Anseur, Adèle Thirion1 (in alternation)

1. Young singers from the Conservatoire Régional du Grand Nancy 

Gallery

See also

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