Szuvidált szenvedélyek

Henry Purcell’s epic masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas has to do with the Trojan War. But what is even more important than the historical background of this hour-long little gem is love – as Dóra Barta, the director of the production highlights it, “Humanity has long known that if there is something you can die of, Love is certainly such a thing.

“I've captured a terrific storm of elements and of hearts which gradually calms to Brünnhilde's magic sleep,” Wagner on the score of Die Walküre, in a letter to Ferenc Liszt. Following on the heels of the introductory Das Rheingold, this opera about the tragic love between two of Wotan's children constitutes the start of the more tightly drawn dramatic trilogy. Once again, the laws of the gods clash: can paternal love save a lad who has violated the sanctity of marriage?

While the Fountain of Tears bubbles before him, Giray, khan of the Tatars, is lost in brooding. Just as the flow from the marble fount cannot be exhausted, his own sorrow will never diminish, either. The story of the Fountain of Bakhchisarai is set in motion by a romance recounting the reason for the khan's gloom.