Don Carlo

In the organizer's words:

Opera by Giuseppe Verdi - Five-act Italian version from 1886 - In Italian with German surtitles

The young Don Carlo is dismayed when he learns that his father, Filippo II of Spain, is to marry the French princess Elisabetta - the woman Don Carlo loves and who had been promised to him. However, a peace treaty between the two countries can only be realized through Filippo's marriage to Elisabetta. From now on, unrequited love and world politics are inextricably intertwined: Filippo, a powerful ruler in an empire where the sun never sets, senses that his wife Elisabetta does not love him. Don Carlo's fierce devotion is now directed towards his stepmother instead of his bride. At the same time, Princess Eboli, who loves him, plots revenge against her rival. And Don Carlo's childhood friend Rodrigo pleads for the freedom of Flanders, which is oppressed by Spain.

It is often said with a wink that there are two kinds of people: those who think Verdi's "Don Carlo" is the best thing that ever happened to art - and everyone else. Verdi's perhaps most powerful and nuanced depiction of the inextricable intertwining of love and politics, of the private and the public, can be seen as the culmination of his lifelong exploration of Friedrich Schiller. The choirs, the orchestra and the vocal splendor of this imposing masterpiece come into their own acoustically in the Rhein-Mosel-Halle, where the Koblenz Verdi tradition is continued by director Markus Dietze and conductor Marcus Merkel.