Orest

Exile, xenophobia and dictatorship are the central themes of Handel’s opera, which premiered in 1734. It tells the story of Orestes, drawn from Greek mythology. Orestes murdered his mother, Clytemnestra, to take revenge on his father, Agamemnon. Haunted by madness, the matricide flees to Tauris. There he encounters his sister Iphigenia, whom he believed to be dead. She is forced by the tyrant Thoas to kill all strangers. The siblings only recognise each other late in the story, but together with their companions they manage to break Thoas’s tyranny and escape.

For the opera, Handel has compiled a pastiche of the most beautiful arias from nine of his operas, written between 1720 and 1732, into a musical delight. This fast-paced and dense opera highlights the composer’s artistry, in which he allows his characters to experiment with musical means of expression with sensitivity and intuition. Composer and sound designer Albrecht Ziepert, together with director Mirella Weingarten, will reinterpret Handel’s pastiche, thereby revealing the piece’s contemporary themes. Through the relevance of the subject matter and the form, Handel’s remarkable modernity can be experienced anew.