Name: Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen
Start: 2010-01-24T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2010-04-11T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Deutsche Oper Berlin

Organization

Singer

Tenor

Torsten Kerl

Rienzi

Soprano

Camilla Nylund

Irene

Bass

Ante Jerkunica

Steffano Colonna

Mezzo-soprano

Kate Aldrich

Adriano

Krzysztof Szumanski

Paolo Orsini

Lenus Carlson

Kardinal Orvieto

Clemens Bieber

Baroncelli

Stephen Bronk

Cecco del Vecchio

Conductor

Sebastian Lang-Lessing

Stage director

Philipp Stölzl

Set designer

Ulrike Siegrist

Costume designer

Kathi Maurer

Chorus master

William Spaulding

Dramaturge

Katharina John

Deutsche Oper Berlin

German

Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen

Berlin

Germany

Die Tischlerei

In his early work "Rienzi", Richard Wagner tells the story of a Roman folk hero who wants to build on the city's past greatness with his plans for a "new people". At first he meets with enthusiastic approval, but when the implementation of his utopia triggers increasing violence, the tribune, who is praised as the savior, is dismissed as a traitor; the people want to lynch him...
Wagner himself wrote the libretto based on the novel "Rienzi, The Last of the Roman Tribunes" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). Wagner linked this story of the rise and fall of the tribune with an erotic love triangle.
Director Philipp Stölzl ("Nordwand", "Goethe!", "Der Medicus") sees the plot as a parable about dictatorships of the 20th century and describes the career of a charismatic politician; he shows the emergence, functioning and failure of dictatorship as a nightmare of people's weakness and willingness to use violence on their way to a questionable utopia.
"We hear Richard Wagner's wonderful Rienzi Overture, the opening music of the NSDAP Reich Party Rallies as well as the theme music from Spiegel TV, and look at a figure with only one hand protruding over the edge of the executive chair at a huge panoramic window: snow-covered Alps brand Obersalzberg, except that Hitler's high seat here is an imperial state chancellery, the mountains flicker like a video installation from the eighties, and the man in the chair, wearing a white uniform, is as fat as Goering and agile as a monkey." (The time)
"Stölzl virtuously uses video feeds in the style of newsreels or the public viewing of Rienzi's dictatorial gestures, which are well worth seeing. From the third act, Rienzi moves only in his bunker, apart from his speeches, which are only held in front of the camera, he is a trembling wreck, and when he moves not bending over maps with his officers, he plays with the architectural models of his future capital." (Berliner Zeitung)
"Sebastian Lang-Lessing goes full throttle in the orchestra pit. He whips his way through the work with full instrumental effort and even more through the fabulous, almost hundred-voice choir." (Berlin morning post)

Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen Wagner,Richard

Approved

Production booklet

Further reading