Luisa Miller (Giuseppe Verdi) – Premiere
The Luzerner Sinfonieorchester as the opera orchestra of the Lucerne Theater
The Luzerner Sinfonieorchester as the opera orchestra of the Lucerne Theater
Verdi’s composition of the sad end of Luisa and Rodolfo’s earthly love is magnificent. The family drama culminates in a painful finale when Luisa confesses the whole truth to her lover: Rodolfo’s father, Count von Walter, and his henchman Wurm have forced her to renounce her love for him. They have both already drunk the poison that will bring them together in a better world. But Rodolfo still finds the strength to stab Wurm and give his father a message: “I will take from you what is most precious to you. I will take your son from you.”
Luisa and Rodolfo had no chance from the start. Their doom was a dark secret of their father’s that the count and Wurm wanted to keep at all costs. The lovers hung like marionettes from the strings in their hands. Verdi’s opera, first performed in 1849, tells the story of Luisa and Rodolfo in three acts, entitled: Love – Intrigue – Poison.
Even though Verdi’s librettist Cammarano had removed all political allusions from the tragedy “Kabale und Liebe”, which was taken from Schiller, it was still explosive material. Verdi transformed it into his own unmistakable vocal drama, which circumvented the reprisals of a censorship hostile to the arts. As a composer, he had already almost broken away from his style-defining predecessors Bellini and Donizetti at this point.
From May 17, 2025 on the stage of the Lucerne Theater.
The Luzerner Sinfonieorchester as the opera orchestra of the Lucerne Theater