Organization

Singer

Soprano

Anna Prohaska

Aricie

Mezzo-soprano

Magdalena Kožená

Phèdre

Adriane Queiroz

Oenone

Elsa Dreisig

Diane

Tenor

Reinoud Van Mechelen

Hippolyte

Bass

Gyula Orendt

Thésée

Peter Rose

Pluton

Jupiter

Roman Trekel

Tisiphone

Sarah Aristidou

La Grande-Prêtresse de Diane

Slávka Zámečníková

Une Chasseresse

Serena Sáenz

Une bergère

Baritone

Michael Smallwood

Mercure

Conductor

Simon Rattle

Stage director

Aletta Collins

Set designer

Olafur Eliasson

Lighting designer

Olaf Freese

Choreographer

Chorus master

Martin Wright

Dramaturge

Detlef Giese

Costume designer

Une Matelote

David Oštrek

Linard Vrielink

1. Parque

Arttu Kataja

2. Parque

Jan Martinik

3. Parque

State Opera Berlin

Orchestra

Freiburger Barockorchester

Others

Staatsopernchor Berlin

French

Hippolyte et Aricie -  (Hippolytus and Aricia)

Berlin

Germany

Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Apollo-Saal

Hippolyte et Aricie by Jean-Philippe Rameau, from Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, 2018. Directed by Andreas Morell, conductor Sir Simon Rattle. Starring Anna Prohaska, Magdalena Kožená, Elsa Dreisig, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Gyula Orendt, Peter Rose, Roman Trekel. Performed in French.

Jean-Philippe Rameau is now one of the most celebrated opera composers of all time—but he didn’t make his debut in the genre until he was nearly fifty! Already highly respected as a music theorist and harpsichord composer, his encounter with Montéclair’s Jephté in 1732 ignited a burst of creative energy that Rameau would forge into dozens of now-beloved operas, the very first of which was 1733’s Hippolyte et Aricie.

For this first foray into the dominant musical genre in Europe, Rameau enlisted Jephté librettist Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, who based the new tragédie en musique on Racine’s Phèdre (itself rooted in classics by Seneca and Euripides). The tormented, almost impossible love between Hippolyte (son of Athenian king Theseus) and Aricie (daughter of the king’s enemy), served as the narrative backdrop upon which Rameau broke with operatic conventions and sparked a scandal in the operatic milieu. The public was split into more conservative Lullistes, who saw Rameau's music as a threat to the forms established by court favorite Lully, and Ramistes, who prized Rameau’s innovations in harmony, orchestration and ornament—among them composer André Campra, who declared of Hippolyte et Aricie that “there is enough music in this opera to make ten of them; this man will eclipse us all.”

Nearly 300 years later, Hippolyte et Aricie’s place in the repertoire—like Rameau’s place in opera history—is no longer in question, though it is certainly still capable of causing a stir. This 2018 production unites an impeccable cast—including Anna Prohaska as Aricie and Reinoud Van Mechelen as Hippolyte—with Sir Simon Rattle and the Freiburger Barockorchester, one of the world's most prestigious baroque orchestras, in a bold new staging that sparked lively controversy with its striking modernity.

Photos