Organization

Singer

Soprano

Marie-Eve Munger

Nachtigall

Tenor

Tuomas Katajala

Hoffegut

Baritone

Cody Quattlebaum

Ratefreund

Stage director

Ted Huffman

Conductor

Sora Elisabeth Lee

Aziz Shokhakimov

Lighting designer

Bernd Purkrabek

Costume designer

Doey Lüthi

Set designer

Andrew Lieberman

Choreographer

Pim Veulings

Chorus master

Alessandro Zuppardo

Antoin Herrera-López Kessel

Adler

Christoph Pohl

Wiedehopf

Julie Goussot

Zaunschlüpfer

Josef Wagner

Prometheus

Bass

Young-Min Suk

Stimme des Zeus

Daniel Dropulja

Rabe

Namdeuk Lee

Flamingo

Simonetta Cavalli

1. Drossel

Mezzo-soprano

Nathalie Gaudefroy

2. Drossel

Dilan Ayata

Die Schwalben

Aline Gozlan

Tatiana Zolotikova

Opéra National du Rhin

Orchestra

Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg

Others

Chœur de l'Opéra National du Rhin

German

Die Vögel -  (The Birds)

Mulhouse

France

La Filature

he Birds is neither a documentary film about our feathered friends nor a remake of Hitchcock’s horror classic; it is rather an operatic adaptation of Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy and a key work by German composer Walter Braunfels.

Braunfels did most of his composing in the early twentieth century at a time when Late Romanticism and Impressionism were running into new theories of music, neoclassicism and other new currents. Braunfels saw himself as belonging to the line of Straussian Late Romantics. Since he was a Jew, his works fell victim to the Nazi censors during the Third Reich. For a long time all but forgotten, they are now becoming popular again, first and foremost among them The Birds.

The plot turns on two friends, Hoffegut (Good Hope) and Ratefreund (Loyal Friend), who having had their fill of the world of humans set off in search of new adventures in the realm of the birds. There, Hoffegut lets himself be seduced by the song of the Nightingale, while Ratefreund, succumbing to human greed, persuades Hoopoe, King of the Birds, to build a grand new city in the sky. This will prevent the smoke from humans’ sacrificial offerings from reaching the gods, the aim being to starve the gods into submission to the birds. But the avian bid for power does not turn out as planned. So furious are the gods that they declare war on the birds.

Production booklet

Further reading