Orestes by Weingartner, De (2023/2023), Dirigit per Guy Montavon,, Director musical Alexander Prior, Theater Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

King Agamemnon returns from the Trojan War. His wife Klytemnestra greets him feigning joy, but secretly she blames him for the death of her daughter Iphigenia. As prophesied by the Trojan seeress Cassandra, Clytemnestra kills her husband in order to ascend the throne of Argos with her lover Aegisthos. Clytemnestra has obligated her daughter Elektra to keep watch over Agamemnon's tomb. There Elektra meets her brother Orestes who has returned home and tells him about his father's murder. After killing Aegisthus, Orestes does not spare his mother either. He flees from the spirits of revenge (Erinyen) and places his fate in the hands of the gods. Athena finally acquits Orestes, appeases the Erinyes, ending the cycle of murder and revenge. Felix Weingartner was one of the most famous conductors of his time, but he also frequently composed symphonies, chamber music and stage works. For his opera, he chose Aeschylus' Oresteia , the oldest surviving stage trilogy in theater history. The opera Orestes was written not long before Strauss's much more radical Elektra , which is based on the same material and brought about 100 years of oblivion for Weingartner's nevertheless ambitious work. Both works, Elektra and Orestes , each conducted by General Music Director Alexander Prior, frame the "Greek Season" of the Theater Erfurt