Stiffelio - Music Theater at the Vienna

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
Stiffelio discovers upon returning from a journey that his wife Lina has betrayed him with the nobleman Raffaele. His immediate impulse is to take revenge, but as a pastor of a Protestant Anabaptist community, he must justify any decision not only to himself but also to God and to the people whom he is supposed to be a role model for, leading him into a deep conflict. Composed immediately before his "Trilogia popolare," Giuseppe Verdi places a deeply ambivalent anti-hero at the center of the action with Stiffelio, which initially overwhelmed both the censorship authority and the audience when the work premiered in 1850. Even in the 21st century, with its partially altered value system, Stiffelio's torn nature between what he wants to be and what he must be remains strikingly relevant. Director Vasily Barkhatov returns to the MusikTheater an der Wien after his interpretations of The Idiot and Norma, while conductor Jérémie Rhorer continues his exploration of the uncharted repertoire of Romanticism following Les Martyrs.
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Introduction to the work 30 minutes before the performance begins.