Look forward to 48 events, including once again a world premiere opera commissioned by the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, co-produced with the Bregenz Festival and funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. The composer is Johannes Kalitzke, a Rhinelander living in Vienna. His opera Captain Nemo's Library, based on the novel of the same name by Per Olov Enquist, will be realised by Christoph Werner, artistic director of the Puppentheater Halle. Musical performers include the vocal soloists Iurii Ishkevich, Johanna Zimmer, Reuben Willcox, Noa Frenkel and Rinnat Moriah as well as the Ensemble Modern Frankfurt. The composer himself is the musical director.
In addition to the Beethoven project Force & Freedom with Nico and the Navigators, which was postponed due to the pandemic, the programme includes other staged productions: the opera L'Isola d'Alcina by Giuseppe Gazzaniga is a virtuoso parody of the myth of the sorceress Alcina. First performed at the Schwetzingen Court Theatre in 1773, the work now returns to the stage in a co-production with the Oldenburg State Theatre. The international ensemble of singers is accompanied by the ensemble L'arte del mondo under the musical direction of Werner Ehrhardt, directed by Christoph von Bernuth.
The melodrama Medea by Georg Anton Benda revolves around another mythological figure. The performance will be of the Mannheim version from 1784, the new edition of which was recently published in the Frankfurt research project "Opera. Spectrum of European Music Theatre" research project. La Stagione Frankfurt will perform, with Marina Galic (Medea) and Michael Rotschopf (Jason) among the speakers.
