Antigone
Opera adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone.
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Opera adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone.
During a Bacchic carnival in a small German town in 1523, a village idiot is declared king for a week and becomes rational, preaching love and freedom. He is sentenced to burn at the stake.
On the anniversary of the king's assassination, his reclusive widow shelters Stanislas, a wounded anarchist poet who resembles the dead king and had entered her room to kill her. An ambiguous love develops as they confront the court's political machinations and struggle to remain true to their ideals.
In Ephesus, a young widow seals herself in her husband's tomb, intending to die there as an example of fidelity. Her nurse tries to revive her interest in life by drawing her attention to the cemetery guard, while revelations about her late husband unsettle her resolve.
Belle’s father is condemned by the Beast for taking a rose, so Belle offers herself in his place. She gradually comes to trust the Beast, but returns home to visit her ailing father; her siblings steal the key to the Beast’s pavilion, and Avenant dies trying to enter. His death breaks the curse, transforming the Beast into Prince Ardent, whom Belle marries.
In a provincial town, a writer of anonymous letters stirs fear and conflict within an unconventional family: a disengaged father, his daughter, and twin sons, one good-natured and the other recently out of prison. The father's former lover falls for the latter twin, while a police friend operates undercover.
Alone in her bedroom, Elle answers a call from the lover who has left her. She initially hides that she took twelve sleeping pills the previous night and was rescued by a friend and doctor. As interruptions and suspicions about his location unsettle her, the call repeatedly fails; she eventually wraps the telephone cord around her neck, tells him she loves him, and drops the receiver.
Le Bœuf sur le toit (literally "the ox on the roof"), Op. 58 is a 15-minute piece for small orchestra by the composer Darius Milhaud, written in 1919–20. Milhaud conceived the piece as incidental music for any one of the comic silent films of Charlie Chaplin, but it received its premiere as the music for a ballet staged by Jean Cocteau in February 1920.
The curtain rises on a warm evening in India, centuries in the past. In front of a rock temple, a pool is seen with a lotus on the surface of the water. Snakes, tortoises, and other animals rest near the pool. The temple walls are covered with masses of flowering plants. A crowd is waiting for a ceremony to begin. The Young Man is about to become a priest of the temple. The Young Girl runs in and kneels at his feet. She does not want him to desert her for the priesthood and dances before him. The priests are shocked and lead The Young Man away while The Young Girl is prepared for death. The gates are shut. The Young Girl tries to escape, but monsters rise from a place beneath a trap door. The Goddess rises from the lotus. The Blue God rises from the pool, and calms the monsters with his flute. The monsters are trapped by the masses of plants. The Blue God's work is done. The priests enter. They are surprised to see The Young Girl still alive and fall on their knees before her. The Young Man rejoins The Young Girl. The Goddess orders a golden staircase to descend from the heavens. The Blue God flies up the staircase and disappears into the clouds.
When Gendarme Pénultième brings an alleged offender to Commissioner Médor, his bewildering report accuses a priest of indecency in the Marquise de Montonson’s park. The supposed priest reveals she is the marquise, who had stooped to pick a four-leaf clover; she invites the commissioner to dinner, while the gendarme is arrested for disrespecting his superior.
After fifteen years away, a sailor returns wealthy but unrecognized and visits his wife disguised as a stranger. He tells her that her husband is coming home, then rents a room at her bar. When she later finds him asleep, she kills him with a hammer and takes his valuables, while her father-in-law helps conceal the body. Still believing her husband will return, she sings of his approaching homecoming.
Le Jeune Homme et la Mort is a ballet by Roland Petit, choreographed in 1946 to Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, with a one-act libretto by Jean Cocteau. It tells the story of a young man driven to suicide by his faithless lover. Sets were by Georges Wakhévitch and costumes variously reported as being by Karinska or Cocteau. Petit is purported to have created Le Jeune Homme et la Mort for his wife-to-be Zizi Jeanmaire, but it was danced by Jean Babilée and Nathalie Philippart at its 25 June 1946 premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with costumes by Tom Keogh. In 1951, Petit staged the ballet at American Ballet Theatre. In 1966, he filmed the ballet in France with Rudolf Nureyev and Zizi Jeanmaire. Le Jeune Homme et la Mort was revived by Mikhail Baryshnikov at the American Ballet Theatre in 1975 and in the 1985 movie White Nights, in arrangements by Petit for Baryshnikov. It has been in the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet since 1990 and was danced at its premiere there by Kader Belarbi. It has also been danced by the Ballet National de Marseilles (1984), the Berlin Opera Ballet (1985), the Boston Ballet (1998), the Bolshoi Ballet (2009), the Mariinsky Ballet (late 1990s, revival 2012) and the English National Ballet (2018).
Merlin is depicted as an old, cruel enchanter who manipulates King Arthur's court with the help of a demon.
The story of the ballet is somewhat nonsensical: The new couple have a wedding breakfast on Bastille Day (July 14) at a table on one of the platforms of the famous tower. A guest makes a pompous speech. When a humpbacked photographer bids everyone to "watch the birdie," it appears that a telegraph office suddenly springs into existence on the platform. A lion comes in and eats one of the guests for breakfast and a strange figure called "a child of the future" appears and kills everybody. Nevertheless, the ballet concludes with the end of the wedding. When asked what the ballet was about, Cocteau replied: "Sunday vacuity; human beastliness, ready-made expressions, disassociation of ideas from flesh and bone, ferocity of childhood, the miraculous poetry of everyday life." On 29 July 1923, in a letter, Francis Poulenc described the work as "toujours de la merde... hormis l'Ouverture d'Auric" ("yet more shit... apart from Auric's Overture").
A young actress, Liane, becomes involved with Florent, an established actor whose wife Esther is also a celebrated performer. After Liane's imagined affair unsettles Esther, the wife takes the younger actress into their home and deliberately pushes her toward Florent, setting a theatrical game of deception in motion.
Yvonne and Georges live with their son Michel and Yvonne's sister Léo, who is also in love with Georges. When Michel announces his love for Madeleine, Georges reveals that she is his own mistress. Léo tries to reconcile the family, but after Madeleine and Michel reunite, Yvonne takes a fatal insulin overdose.
To end a plague in Thebes, Oedipus vows to find Laius’s murderer. Clues reveal that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother, Jocasta, who kills herself. Oedipus blinds himself and leaves Thebes.
Orpheus follows a supernatural horse’s cryptic messages and enters its verse in a contest, provoking scandal. After the Bacchantes murder Eurydice, he travels through a mirror to rescue her, but a rule forbidding him to look at her makes their reunion impossible.
A three-act tragedy dramatizing an episode concerning Renaud and Armide from Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered.
Alone onstage in Paris, a woman speaks by telephone with her departing lover, who is to marry another woman the next day; the monologue exposes her despair and the strain of communication.
The Voice recounts the prophecy and events leading to Oedipus's marriage to his mother. Across four acts, the ghost of Laius fails to warn the soldiers, the Sphinx reveals the answer to her riddle, and Oedipus and Jocasta marry. News of Oedipus's adoption exposes his parentage; Jocasta dies by suicide and Oedipus blinds himself.
Opera adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone.
During a Bacchic carnival in a small German town in 1523, a village idiot is declared king for a week and becomes rational, preaching love and freedom. He is sentenced to burn at the stake.
On the anniversary of the king's assassination, his reclusive widow shelters Stanislas, a wounded anarchist poet who resembles the dead king and had entered her room to kill her. An ambiguous love develops as they confront the court's political machinations and struggle to remain true to their ideals.
In Ephesus, a young widow seals herself in her husband's tomb, intending to die there as an example of fidelity. Her nurse tries to revive her interest in life by drawing her attention to the cemetery guard, while revelations about her late husband unsettle her resolve.
Belle’s father is condemned by the Beast for taking a rose, so Belle offers herself in his place. She gradually comes to trust the Beast, but returns home to visit her ailing father; her siblings steal the key to the Beast’s pavilion, and Avenant dies trying to enter. His death breaks the curse, transforming the Beast into Prince Ardent, whom Belle marries.
In a provincial town, a writer of anonymous letters stirs fear and conflict within an unconventional family: a disengaged father, his daughter, and twin sons, one good-natured and the other recently out of prison. The father's former lover falls for the latter twin, while a police friend operates undercover.
Alone in her bedroom, Elle answers a call from the lover who has left her. She initially hides that she took twelve sleeping pills the previous night and was rescued by a friend and doctor. As interruptions and suspicions about his location unsettle her, the call repeatedly fails; she eventually wraps the telephone cord around her neck, tells him she loves him, and drops the receiver.
Le Bœuf sur le toit (literally "the ox on the roof"), Op. 58 is a 15-minute piece for small orchestra by the composer Darius Milhaud, written in 1919–20. Milhaud conceived the piece as incidental music for any one of the comic silent films of Charlie Chaplin, but it received its premiere as the music for a ballet staged by Jean Cocteau in February 1920.
The curtain rises on a warm evening in India, centuries in the past. In front of a rock temple, a pool is seen with a lotus on the surface of the water. Snakes, tortoises, and other animals rest near the pool. The temple walls are covered with masses of flowering plants. A crowd is waiting for a ceremony to begin. The Young Man is about to become a priest of the temple. The Young Girl runs in and kneels at his feet. She does not want him to desert her for the priesthood and dances before him. The priests are shocked and lead The Young Man away while The Young Girl is prepared for death. The gates are shut. The Young Girl tries to escape, but monsters rise from a place beneath a trap door. The Goddess rises from the lotus. The Blue God rises from the pool, and calms the monsters with his flute. The monsters are trapped by the masses of plants. The Blue God's work is done. The priests enter. They are surprised to see The Young Girl still alive and fall on their knees before her. The Young Man rejoins The Young Girl. The Goddess orders a golden staircase to descend from the heavens. The Blue God flies up the staircase and disappears into the clouds.
When Gendarme Pénultième brings an alleged offender to Commissioner Médor, his bewildering report accuses a priest of indecency in the Marquise de Montonson’s park. The supposed priest reveals she is the marquise, who had stooped to pick a four-leaf clover; she invites the commissioner to dinner, while the gendarme is arrested for disrespecting his superior.
After fifteen years away, a sailor returns wealthy but unrecognized and visits his wife disguised as a stranger. He tells her that her husband is coming home, then rents a room at her bar. When she later finds him asleep, she kills him with a hammer and takes his valuables, while her father-in-law helps conceal the body. Still believing her husband will return, she sings of his approaching homecoming.
Le Jeune Homme et la Mort is a ballet by Roland Petit, choreographed in 1946 to Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, with a one-act libretto by Jean Cocteau. It tells the story of a young man driven to suicide by his faithless lover. Sets were by Georges Wakhévitch and costumes variously reported as being by Karinska or Cocteau. Petit is purported to have created Le Jeune Homme et la Mort for his wife-to-be Zizi Jeanmaire, but it was danced by Jean Babilée and Nathalie Philippart at its 25 June 1946 premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with costumes by Tom Keogh. In 1951, Petit staged the ballet at American Ballet Theatre. In 1966, he filmed the ballet in France with Rudolf Nureyev and Zizi Jeanmaire. Le Jeune Homme et la Mort was revived by Mikhail Baryshnikov at the American Ballet Theatre in 1975 and in the 1985 movie White Nights, in arrangements by Petit for Baryshnikov. It has been in the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet since 1990 and was danced at its premiere there by Kader Belarbi. It has also been danced by the Ballet National de Marseilles (1984), the Berlin Opera Ballet (1985), the Boston Ballet (1998), the Bolshoi Ballet (2009), the Mariinsky Ballet (late 1990s, revival 2012) and the English National Ballet (2018).
Merlin is depicted as an old, cruel enchanter who manipulates King Arthur's court with the help of a demon.
The story of the ballet is somewhat nonsensical: The new couple have a wedding breakfast on Bastille Day (July 14) at a table on one of the platforms of the famous tower. A guest makes a pompous speech. When a humpbacked photographer bids everyone to "watch the birdie," it appears that a telegraph office suddenly springs into existence on the platform. A lion comes in and eats one of the guests for breakfast and a strange figure called "a child of the future" appears and kills everybody. Nevertheless, the ballet concludes with the end of the wedding. When asked what the ballet was about, Cocteau replied: "Sunday vacuity; human beastliness, ready-made expressions, disassociation of ideas from flesh and bone, ferocity of childhood, the miraculous poetry of everyday life." On 29 July 1923, in a letter, Francis Poulenc described the work as "toujours de la merde... hormis l'Ouverture d'Auric" ("yet more shit... apart from Auric's Overture").
A young actress, Liane, becomes involved with Florent, an established actor whose wife Esther is also a celebrated performer. After Liane's imagined affair unsettles Esther, the wife takes the younger actress into their home and deliberately pushes her toward Florent, setting a theatrical game of deception in motion.
Yvonne and Georges live with their son Michel and Yvonne's sister Léo, who is also in love with Georges. When Michel announces his love for Madeleine, Georges reveals that she is his own mistress. Léo tries to reconcile the family, but after Madeleine and Michel reunite, Yvonne takes a fatal insulin overdose.
To end a plague in Thebes, Oedipus vows to find Laius’s murderer. Clues reveal that Oedipus killed his father and married his mother, Jocasta, who kills herself. Oedipus blinds himself and leaves Thebes.
Orpheus follows a supernatural horse’s cryptic messages and enters its verse in a contest, provoking scandal. After the Bacchantes murder Eurydice, he travels through a mirror to rescue her, but a rule forbidding him to look at her makes their reunion impossible.
A three-act tragedy dramatizing an episode concerning Renaud and Armide from Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered.
Alone onstage in Paris, a woman speaks by telephone with her departing lover, who is to marry another woman the next day; the monologue exposes her despair and the strain of communication.
The Voice recounts the prophecy and events leading to Oedipus's marriage to his mother. Across four acts, the ghost of Laius fails to warn the soldiers, the Sphinx reveals the answer to her riddle, and Oedipus and Jocasta marry. News of Oedipus's adoption exposes his parentage; Jocasta dies by suicide and Oedipus blinds himself.