La Reine / The Queen at Nationaltheater Mannheim

No opera, not a recital, not a spectacle. And yet thrilling musical theater. - An unusual creation brings under the title La Reine / The queen two highlights of the song literature to the stage: Les Nuits d'été by Berlioz and Richard Wagner's famous Wesendonck Lieder. Two cycles are dedicated entirely to the love and the mystery. Are there in Berlioz the darkly glowing verses Gautier, winged his inspiration, so there are the poems of his secret lover Mathilde Wesendonck Wagner. It is always about the mysteries of love, about passion and longing for death.

To bring this darkly romantic works shine, it takes an exceptional artist like Angela Denoke that one of the leading singers of her generation. The two cycles from the mid-19th century are connected in the direction of Thomas Bischoff with existential lyrics miller and Rimbaud, which form the third member of this Franco-German evening. In an impressive stage scenery of symbols and signs created a nail-biting allegory of the uncontrollable forces of power, of love and death.