Heroine

To open the season, this evening, consecrated to the transgression of things forbidden, combines  three rare works in a single artistic endeavour. Sancta Susanna streaked through the skies of opera like a meteor one evening in March 1922. Driven by a burning desire, a nun strips naked and embraces the statue of Christ. This thirty-minute work, never performed, caused a scandal when it premiered at the Frankfurt Opera and provoked the fury of the Church.

The sultry deeds of Sancta Susanna are matched by Judith's thirst for knowledge: Bluebeard's Castle is a disquieting “huis clos”, a confrontation between Bluebeard and his wife who obliges her lover to open the doors of his castle one by one, to the point of no return... To accompany this plunge into the unknown, Bartók composed a spellbinding nocturnal score, imbued with fantasised Hungarian folklore.

Honegger's Danse des morts, another little-known if not unknown work, completes the evening. In this choral work composed to a poem by Claudel, the dead become a joyful and subversive community. The composer plays with the frontiers between scholarly and popular music, incorporating unexpected songs such as Sur le pont d'Avignon into his inferno.

Winner of the European Opera Director Prize, Anthony Almeida presents a woman at three different stages of her life. Each piece depicts one of the social rituals - baptism, marriage and death - that punctuate her existence. This modern-day heroine becomes the common thread in this fiery triptych.

Duration
2 h 45 with interval

Prices
5 — 85 €

Lyrical pieces in German, Hungarian and French, with surtitles
All audiences from 13 years

Introduction to the performance
45 minutes before the start of the performance (free of charge, upon presentation of ticket). 

The performance on Sunday 6 October includes a workshop for young audiences. For more information, click here.
The performance on Thursday 10 October has a special price for students and/or under-30s: €10 for the best seats! 

Sancta Susanna, Paul Hindemith
Bluebeard's Castle, Béla Bartók
Dance of the Dead, Arthur Honegger

Opéra national de Lorraine

Sora Elisabeth Lee

Guillaume Fauchère

Silvina Peruglia

Borbála Szuromi

Anthony Almeida

Basia Bińkowska

Franck Evin

Rosabel Huguet

Alixe Durand Saint Guillain

first performed at the Frankfurt Opera on 26 March 1922

August Stramm

Paul Hindemith

Anaïk Morel

Rosie Aldridge

Apolline Raï-Westphal

Yannis François

Séverine Maquaire

first performed at the Hungarian Royal Opera House on 24 May 1918

Béla Balázs, based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault

Béla Bartók

Joshua Bloom

 Rosie Aldridge 

first performed in Basel on 2 March 1940

Paul Claudel, based on biblical texts

Arthur Honegger

Anaïk Morel

Apolline Raï-Westphal

Yannis François

Claire Wauthion

Salma-Faïhrouz Jacquot-Anseur, Adèle Thirion¹ (in alternation)

^{1. Young singers from the Conservatoire Régional du Grand Nancy}