Costume Designer

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.

EPSG:4326

Zaide

Ludwigsburg Palace

"Let us sing, let us laugh, there is no other way. The world and hardship are the same, no one is free from torment," says Mozart's unfinished work, a tragic love story named after the slave Zaide and set in Turkey. In Mozart's great operatic oeuvre, "Turkishness," and thus the confrontation between Orient and Occident, occupies a considerable space. Alongside elements in "Così fan tutte" and "The Magic Flute," exoticisms are particularly prominent in Mozart's first German Singspiels, "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and the preceding "Zaide." But "Turkishness" in his Singspiel certainly does not come from Turkey. Director Jessica Glause, together with a select ensemble of young Mozart voices from the Stuttgart State Opera, explores the extent to which foreignness and inclusion can be influenced by music.

Lena Winkler-Hermaden

Costume Designer

Events

Upcoming events

Jun 22 - Jul 12, 2025

Zaide · Staatsoper Stuttgart

Jun 22 - Jul 12, 2025

ZAIDE · Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele

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