Dramaturge

The emotionally torn Roderick Usher is the last branch of a degenerate noble family and is at the centre of this dark story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story is initially a dialogue between Roderick Usher and the first-person narrator William, who finds his friend in a worryingly absent-minded state on his country estate. Roderick's twin sister also lives in the house. But for William, her presence is like a ghostly suspicion - especially when Roderick declares her dead. This huge, demonic house, which seems to be tearing apart in the middle, seems to have a malicious power over the souls that live in it. What family history is inscribed in the house?

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The Fall of the House of Usher

Staatstheater Mainz

How well-versed are you in Greek mythology? Are you familiar with the characters of goddesses and gods? And who actually rode the Trojan horse?
The operetta The Beautiful Helen offers a little insight here: Helen was supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world in her time (around 1250 BC). Aphrodite, who had won the beauty contest with Athena and Hera, had promised Helen to the judge Paris as a prize. At the time of the contest, however, Helen was not free; she was married to Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The prize could therefore only be fulfilled by kidnapping Helen, which is ultimately seen as the trigger for the Trojan War.

The Beautiful Helena

The librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal puts these words into the field marshal’s mouth. She knows that the affair with her young lover Octavian is finally over. So she proposes him to her cousin Baron Ochs as a messenger of love, a Rosenkavalier. Ochs has his eye on Sophie, the daughter of an up-and-coming middle-class family. His goal is to rejuvenate the old nobility with new money. What Ochs doesn't expect: Octavian falls in love with Sophie and thwarts his plans.
It is a lively rococo fantasy that Richard Strauss creates with Der Rosenkavalier and in the framework of which he creates a social study about old nobility, new money and class arrogance.

With the production of Strauss' Rosenkavalier, the internationally renowned director Georg Schmiedleitner is presenting himself for the first time in Mainz. Known for his gripping access to material and fine direction of characters, he penetrates the deepest depths of opera characters. In Strauss's masterpiece he will look behind the facade of lavish sounds and rococo gestures.

Der Rosenkavalier

Pagliacci tells the story of an acting troupe: the aging actor Canio learns that his younger wife Nedda is having an affair with another man. Nevertheless, he has to put on a good face every evening on stage as “Bajazzo”. Canio threatens to break because of it.

The ability of the composer Ruggero Leoncavallo to reconcile the playful theater-on-the-theater level, the ambiguous emotional situation and the dark mood makes this opera a thrilling crime thriller.

In Giacomo Puccini's first opera Le Villi, the composer's talent as a melodist and harmonizer - his typical "melancholic tone" - can be clearly heard. Anna and Roberto celebrate their engagement. Soon afterwards, Roberto has to travel to Mainz to collect an inheritance, where he falls for a seductive stranger. Anna feels betrayed by him and dies of grief. Her soul unites with the Willis, the souls of dead women who suffered a similar fate. Roberto finally returns full of remorse, but he is drawn into a frenzied dance by the Willis...

Le Villi / Pagliacci

Nabucco, king of the Babylonians, raids the Hebrews and destroys their temples. His daughter Fenena defects to the enemy camp. Her love for the slave Ismaele is a thorn in the side of her half-sister Abigaille. She is not only fighting against Fenena, but against the subjugated Jewish people.

But then Abigaille finds a document that reveals that she is the daughter of a slave and will therefore never be entitled to the crown. Only an intrigue and the mental decline of her power-obsessed father Nabucco can pave her way to the king's throne...

Dramaturge

Sonja Westerbeck

Events

Past events

Feb 14 - Jun 7, 2025

The Fall of the House of Usher · Staatstheater Mainz

Dec 21, 2024 - Apr 21, 2025

The Beautiful Helena · Staatstheater Mainz

About

Sonja Westerbeck hasn't added a bio