Don Carlo (Italian version) by Verdi, From (2024/2024), Directed by Guy Joosten, Conductor Antonino Fogliani, Opernhaus Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany

"Give freedom of thought!" demands the charismatic Posa of King Philip II, whose rigid apparatus of rule threatens to suffocate Catholic Spain, but above all the oppressed Protestant provinces of Flanders, in the stranglehold of the Inquisition. But neither the lonely king nor his unstable son Carlo turn out to be the hoped-for saviors for the freedom fighter: Philipp is too caught up in the rigid corset of duty and tradition, the crown prince has become too deeply entangled in his love for his stepmother Elisabeth. In the end they will all be victims of a merciless church regime in which there is no place for human emotions.