Oratorio in three acts
Music by Robert Schumann
Poetry from Lalla Rookh by Thomas Moore
In German with German and English surtitles

Premiere: November 15, 2024

Conductor: Giedrė Šlekytė

ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra
Arnold Schoenberg Chor
Conductor: Erwin Ortner

What do we have to do to enter paradise? The Peri, a spirit from Persian mythology, is initially barred from entering since she is the daughter of a fallen angel and a mortal. She is forced to accept that neither heroic courage nor selfless love is enough to earn admittance. It is not until she shows pity that the gates of paradise open for her. Robert Schumann’s secular oratorio Paradise and the Peri is based on a literary fairy tale by Thomas Moore which mingles orientalism and the Romantic conception of salvation. The Peri’s three attempts to enter paradise inspired Schumann to write a score full of colour and drama which, in the apotheosis of the redeemed Peri, takes on characteristics bordering on the ecstatic.