Feiernde Menschen vor dem fiktiven Johann Strauss Denkmal in Wien

The Betrothal in a Monastery

Interior view of the Theater an der Wien, in the background the stage with the iron curtain, to the side the artistically designed boxes and in the foreground the seating in the stalls
@ WienTourismus / Paul Bauer
Interior view of the Theater an der Wien, in the background the stage with the iron curtain, to the side the artistically designed boxes and in the foreground the seating in the stalls

Oratorio in three acts
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Poetry from Lalla Rookh by Thomas Moore
In German with German and English surtitles

Premiere: November 15, 2024

Conductor: Giedrė Šlekytė
Director: Christof Loy

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

For five years, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had not presented an opera on the stage. Then, in 1781, he finally received the long-awaited commission to write one. The drama he was being asked to set was a tragedy in the French style. Despite the difficulties posed by the task of turning it into a magnificent opera seria for the Munich carnival, the commission fired his imagination. Returning home to Crete from the Trojan War, King Idomeneo and his fleet of ships are caught in a raging storm. In a desperate attempt to be saved, he promises Neptune, god of the sea, to sacrifice the first person he meets on land, little knowing that this will be his own son. Mozart used this tale to write an anti-war opera in which he articulated his own "good news" for the first time: the triumph of humanism through the all-conquering power of love. With his music he not only transcended the rigid forms of the libretto he was forced to work with, but went even further: the work, like a kind of template, already contains all the stories, characters and emotions that were to give his later operas their everlasting popularity. Eighteen years after this masterpiece reopened the Theater an der Wien as Vienna’s third opera house in 2006, this new production, directed by the theatre’s artistic director, marks the return of the opera house to its newly refurbished home.

Venue

MusikTheater an der Wien

Linke Wienzeile 6
1060 Wien

Current Dates

  • Wed. 26 Mar 2025, 7 p.m.
  • Fri. 28 Mar 2025, 7 p.m.
  • Mon. 31 Mar 2025, 7 p.m.
  • Wed. 02 Apr 2025, 7 p.m.
  • Sat. 05 Apr 2025, 7 p.m.
  • Mon. 07 Apr 2025, 7 p.m.
  • Wed. 09 Apr 2025, 7 p.m.