Don Carlos

Verdi's opera DON CARLOS does not dwell on trifles, but deals with the really big issues: Freedom, human dignity, friendship and love in the midst of a political power struggle in the heart of Europe. The marriage of Don Carlos and Elisabeth de Valois is intended to seal the peace between the two world powers of Spain and France. The rare exception to this political marriage: the young couple actually love each other. But things turn out differently. For reasons of state, Elisabeth is urged to marry his father Philip II rather than Carlos. Spurred on by his childhood friend Posa, the young Carlos wants to throw himself into the Flemish fight for freedom and thus turn against his father's regime. But how do the people react? While it remains strangely in the background in Verdi's opera, in the new Freiburg production a polyphonic and contradictory chorus is placed in a tense relationship with the decision-makers in the plot. It explores the question of how the feeling of power and powerlessness affects individuals and society and juxtaposes Verdi's opera with texts by Austrian author and playwright Thomas Köck, which he wrote especially for this production. Opera conventions are questioned and perspectives on the past and present of universal humanist values and ideas of freedom are explored.