Opera. Poignant drama about being an outsider, about love and oppression. Song and music are in focus in every way in this sparse grand opéra.
Very demanding of the singers
With its particularly strong and poignant action this grand opéra highlights two Jewish people's outsider status through intrigue, love and oppression. This work, from 1835, was extremely popular at first but later sank into oblivion, for reasons such as Wagner's bitter attack against Jewish composers.
The romantic, dramatic music is very demanding of the singers and requires the very best practitioners. Here, the international French soprano Mireille Delunsch is making a guest appearance as the young Rachel, while heroic tenor Lars Cleveman is playing her father, the Jewish goldsmith Éléazar. It is a case of love that cuts across boundaries when Rachel falls in love with a Christian prince, unaware both of his identity and that he is really betrothed to Princess Eudoxie. The prince's almost inhumanly high tenor voice is performed by Argentinean tenor Dario Schmunk, while Eudoxie's virtuosa coloratura is sung by increasingly renowned soprano Ida Falk Winland – now in her fourth role at The Göteborg Opera.
The sparse production from the opera house in Vilnius bears the signature of Günter Krämer, who previously produced another version of this work at the Vienna State Opera. Conductor Pierre Vallet is an expert in this type of repertoire and is otherwise active at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
