Ermione

At the start of the Trojan War was the passion provoked by the beautiful Helen. Ten years later, the war is over and Helen’s daughter Hermione has grown to become a young woman. Now it is her beauty and her desires that are causing renewed battles. Abandoned by her beloved Pirro, she launches a campaign of vengeance and is responsible for a brutal murder. Ermione, first performed in Naples in 1819, is one of Gioachino Rossini’s most innovative serious operas and is now being shown in Vienna for the first time. A grand total of four main characters struggle with the problem of unrequited love – a scandalous violation of the operatic conventions of the day. Written just before the advent of the bel canto era, the work, with its bold narrative power and exorbitant demands on the singers, proved little short of experimental. Playing the lead is the dramatic coloratura soprano Anastasia Bartoli who was a triumph in the prima donna assoluta role of Ermione at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.

Concert performance in Italian with German surtitles

Introduction to the work 30 minutes before curtain-up

(Source: www.theater-wien.at)