Today : world première of Wolfgang Mitterer's 'Marta' in Lille

Today, the new opera composed by Wolfgang Mitterer, Marta, with a libretto by Gerhild Steinbuch, will be performed in Lille, at the Opera House.

It is the composer's 10th work for music theatre. Among these, Massacre, first performed in Vienna in 2003, has been produced in several theatres since then. The libretto for Marta (in English) is based on sources as diverse as traditional children's tales to Tarkovsky's Stalker.

In a world rent asunder by a dreadful melancholy, ruled by a King Arthur who has been rendered powerless, bewildered, some crazy redeemer has made all the children disappear... The only remaining child is the Queen's daughter, Marta, an ageless doll, whose hair is continually being combed by her mother. Within her glass cage, Marta is given over for the adoration of the people: the final vestige of a doomed world. Poised between sleep and fear, between lynching and fires, in the blinding glare of an irradiated world, death is spreading relentlessly. (reproduced from the Ictus website)

The cast includes soprano Elsa Benoit (Marta), baritone Georg Nigl (Grot), mezzo Ursula Hesse von den Steinen (Ginevra) and tenor Martin Mairinger (Arthur). Clement Power conducts the Ensemble Ictus and Les Cris de Paris. Ludovic Lagarde directs.

The opera is scored for 5 singers, 8 chorus soloists and 11 instrumentalists (flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, piano, e-guitar, percussion, 4 strings and electronices). The performance should last about 90 minutes (no intermission).

New 2014-2015 Season at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse

Next season, the following operas will be performed in Toulouse :

- Giuseppe Verdi : Un Ballo in maschera, conducted by Daniel Oren, directed by Vincent Boussard (new production) ;
- Benjamin Britten : Owen Wingrave (revival from Frankfurt, January 2010) and The Turn of the Screw (new production), conducted by David Syrus, directed by Walter Sutcliffe ;
- Amadeo Vives : Doña Francisquita, conducted by Josep Caballé Domenech, directed by Emiliio Sagi (revival, first performed in June 2007) ;
- Richard Wagner : Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Claus Peter Flor, directed by Nicolas Joel (revival, first performed in March 2007) ;
- George Gershwin : Porgy and Bess, conducted by William Barkhymer, directed by Baayork Lee (1980s production from the New York Harlem Theatre, already performed all over the world) ;
- Jean-Philippe Rameau : Castor et Pollux, conducted by Christophe Rousset, directed by Mariame Clément (first performed in Vienna in January 2011) ;
- Wolfgang Mitterer : Massacre, conducted by Peter Rundel, directed by Ludovic Lagarde (opera first performed in Vienna in 2003, production premiered in Porto in 2008) ;
- Sergei Prokofiev : Betrothal in a Monastery, conducedt by Tugan Sokhiev, directed by Martin Duncan (revival from Toulouse, January 2011) ;
- Giacomo Puccini : Turandot, conducted by Stefan Solyom, directed by Calixto Bieito (new production) ;
- Philippe Servain : War of the Buttons, conducted by Christophe Larrieu, directed by Charlotte Nessi (children opera first performed in 1996, revival from a 2013 production).

With 11 operas (including a double bill evening) in six languages, the Théâtre du Capitole gives a wide survey of opera, from the baroque era (Rameau) to the contemporary (Mitterer), with 8 operas composed in the last 100 years !