Les Martyrs - Schedule, Program & Tickets

Can a martyr's death become the subject of an opera plot? The Italian censors answered the question in the 1830s with a resounding “no”, so that Gaetano Donizetti published his planned opera Poliuto without further ado in France and with the help of the librettist Eugène Scribe as a grand opéra: the work celebrated its premiere as Les Martyrs in Paris in 1840 and waited there with a ballet interlude, a new structure of the score that anticipates the form of music drama and a spectacularly reworked tenor role. At the time of the persecution of Christians in Armenia in late antiquity, a young woman is not only between two religions, but also between her husband and her former lover. Private and ideological upheavals collide in an opera that dares the risky contrast between Italian bel canto and French romanticism. In his production, director Cezary Tomaszewski focuses on the tragic story of the country in which the action is set: Armenia.

In French with German and English surtitles

Introduction to the work 30 minutes before the start of the performance

occupation
musical direction
Jeremie Rhorer

staging
Cezary Tomaszewski

stage and costume
Aleksandra Wasilkowska

Light
Jędrzej Jęcikowski

Video
Krzysztof Kaczmarek

choreography
Barbara Olech

dramaturgy
Jakub Momro
Christian Schroeder

pauline
Roberta Mantegna

Polyeucte
John Osborn

Severe
Mattia Olivieri

Felix
David Steffens

Callisthenes
Nicolo Donini

Nearque
Patrick Kabongo

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra

Arnold Schoenberg Choir
(Head: Erwin Ortner)



Subject to change.