Director

Not all great works are completed: in 1781, the year of the premiere of his Idomeneo , WA Mozart broke off work on his “serious German Singspiel” Zaide , the first attempt at an exoticizing “Turkish opera”, which was followed by the “ light-hearted” Abduction from the Seraglio . But what exactly does “the Turkish” want in it and where does it come from? (Certainly not from Turkey!) Director Jessica Glause uses the surviving Zaide material in Ludwigsburg's Schlosstheater to ask who actually formulates an “us and the others” against the backdrop of which tradition. The history of European musical theater is closely interwoven with the justifying legends of colonialism and racism, ie the arbitrary division of humanity into superior and inferior. Cultures represented as “foreign” through the supposedly neutral standard of the Central European lens have thus been projected into weak, sexualized female figures or despotic ragers again and again over four centuries.

Jessica Glause

Director

Events

Upcoming events

Jun 22 - Jul 12, 2025

Zaide · Staatsoper Stuttgart

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