Organization

Stage director

Stage director (+1)

Christof Nel

Conductor

Conductor (+1)

Sebastian Weigle

Costume designer

Ilse Welter

Set designer

Set designer (+2)

Jens Kilian

Dramaturge

Norbert Abels

Tenor (+1)

Michael Siemon

The Emperor

Soprano (+3)

Camilla Nylund

The Empress

Mezzo-soprano (+2)

Christel Loetzsch

The nurse

Bass-baritone (+4)

Nicholas Brownlee

The messenger of Keikobad

Tenor (+2)

Brian Michael Moore

The apparition of a youth

Baritone (+2)

Wolfgang Koch

Barak

Soprano (+1)

Miina-Liisa Värelä

The dyer's wife

Baritone (+3)

Danylo Matviienko

The one-eyed man

Bass-baritone (+3)

Božidar Smiljanić

The one-armed man

Jonathan Abernethy

The hunchback

Lighting designer

Olaf Winter

Chorusmaster

Chorusmaster (+2)

Tilman Michael

Oper Frankfurt

Chorus

Choir of the Frankfurt Opera

Orchestra

Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester

Opernhaus

Die Frau ohne Schatten is the fourth opera to be written as a collaboration between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and the “last romantic opera”, as Strauss wrote in a letter to Hofmannsthal. The librettist has penetrated far into the world of Arabic fairy tales, Nordic sagas and Christian legends. The completion of the work was delayed by the simultaneous completion of Ariadne auf Naxos and the start of the First World War. The woman without a shadowimpresses with its symbolic colors, a not entirely simple fairy tale structure and intoxicating music. In 2003, director Christof Nel dealt with the enigmatic Hofmannsthal text in a conception that is still exemplary today. He focused on the relationship between the two couples who face each other here: Emperor and Empress on the one hand, Barak and his wife on the other. In the spirit of the underlying oriental fairy tale between the world of spirits and the world of humans, Nel succeeded in providing a mysterious insight into the psyche of the protagonists with careful directing of the characters.

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