Proserpine (concertante)

Linke Wienzeile 6

1060 Wien

 

Tragédie lyrique in a prologue and five acts

Libretto by Philippe Quinault

 

Christophe Rousset and his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques bring a “climate opera” from the 17th century to the MusikTheater an der Wien: Proserpine describes how Pluton, the god of the underworld, kidnaps and marries Proserpine, the daughter of the fertility goddess Cérès, and with it the world plunges into eternal winter. Only through Jupiter's intervention is Proserpine willing to stay with her husband for half the year and on Earth for the other half so that spring can return there. At the heart of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Tragédie en musique, written in 1680, are battles between gods with global implications. With Proserpine, the creator of French baroque opera begins a new creative phase in which melodically expressive arias and ensembles take up more space than in his early operas. Christophe Rousset, who has long been closely associated with the MusikTheater an der Wien, is bringing the rarely performed opera to Vienna for the first time.

 

Concert performance in French with German surtitles

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

 

(Source: theater-wien.at)