Hans Werner Henze: The Bassarids

Release Date: 2019-10-11

Overview: The opera, inspired by Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae, is as seductive as it is topical: When Dionysus – is he a charlatan? is he a demigod? – bursts into the intact world of ancient Thebes, he plunges a city into chaos. In stark contrast to his cousin, King Pentheus, who leads a life marked by purity and asceticism, Dionysus preaches intoxicating excess and sensuality. Aware of the story’s political dimension that resonates in present day politics, Krzysztof Warlikowski brings one of his famed psychological stagings to the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg. In the gigantic three-part set of Malgorzata Szczesniak the captivating tale unfolds like a film using split-screen techniques .

Rating: 0 / 10

Cast

Sean Panikkar

as Dionysus

Russell Braun

as Pentheus

Willard White

as Cadmus

Nikolai Schukoff

as Tiresias/ Calliope

Tanja Ariane Baumgartner

as Agave/Venus