Friedrich Hebbel / Antonio Vivaldi Judith

New production

Coproduction with Schauspiel Stuttgart and Staatsoper Stuttgart

In German and Latin with German and English surtitles

Duration of the performance: approx. 3 hours

CREATIVE TEAM

Sebastian Nübling, Stage Director
Lars Wittershagen, Composition
Lutz Rademacher, Conductor
Muriel Gerstner, Set and Costume Design
Gérard Cleven, Lighting
Xavier Zuber, Dramaturgy
Kekke Schmidt, Dramaturgy 

CAST

Tajana Raj, Stephanie Schönfeld, Anne Tismer, Jonas Fürstenau, Daniel Gloger, Sebastian Kowski, Sebastian Röhrle, Dino Scandariato, Matías Tosi

Capella Triumphans
Annelie Gahl, Direction

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

The story is well-known – only one people refuses to succumb to the victorious Assyrian commander Holofernes, and therefore he threatens it with extinction: Judith's people. The central image of this traditional story is this:
a woman dresses up, walks into the enemy's camp, takes his sword and beheads him. What follows are the liberation and gratitude of her people. Thus the apocryphal Bible story in the book of Judith. – Alternatively, there is a jubilee chorus, as in Vivaldi's oratorio Juditha triumphans of 1716, where the festive music for full orchestra lends the drama a certain baroque archaism. Another alternative: the woman, feeling like a failure and humiliated in body and soul, returns to her people, whose triumph she perceives as scorn – thus one hundred years later in Friedrich Hebbel's version.
For two thousand years, the image of Judith holding the head of Holofernes has stood for the encounter between two people in whom two systems meet, systems that attract each other even though and because they must destroy each other: community versus individuals, faith versus nihilism, law versus anarchy, asceticism versus excess. This encounter between man and woman takes us to the threshold between triumph and failure, image and play, drama and music.

PODCAST

PICTURE GALLERY