Staatsoper Hamburg tickets 23 February 2025 - Mitridate, re di Ponto | GoComGo.com

Mitridate, re di Ponto

Staatsoper Hamburg, Main Stage, Hamburg, Germany
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6 PM
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US$ 170

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You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Hamburg, Germany
Starts at: 18:00
Acts: 3
Duration: 3h 30min
Sung in: Italian
Titles in: German,English

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Cast
Performers
Conductor: Ádám Fischer
Mezzo-Soprano: Adriana Bignani-Lesca (Farnace (Pharnaces))
Soprano: Boen Olivia (Sifare (Xiphares))
Soprano: Nikola Hillebrand (Aspasia)
Orchestra: Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg
Tenor: Robert Murray (Mitridate)
Creators
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Director: Birgit Kajtna-Wönig
Librettist: Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi
Overview

What happens when, in times of war and destruction, even your own family becomes a battlefield and mistrust, desire and betrayal break out?

The cruel, ingenious and at the same time megalomaniac King of Pontus, Mitridate, fights a hopeless war against the Romans, while his two sons are under pressure from their father and his fiancée Aspasia decides against her duty and in favor of her feelings and turns away from him. With Mitridate, the 14-year-old Mozart composed his first full-length opera seria according to all the rules of the time and at the same time a work in which his humanistic flair already shines through. In the arias, he gives the ensemble of singers ample opportunity to explore the depths of the human soul and display their vocal virtuosity. Preserving the essence of this historical operatic genre, but at the same time reinterpreting its form, the aim is to create something in which the orchestra is integrated both visually and in terms of content. In this way, the fate of the characters can be experienced directly through visible music-making.

History

Mitridate, re di Ponto (Mithridates, King of Pontus) is an early opera seria in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto is by Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi, after Giuseppe Parini's Italian translation of Jean Racine's play Mithridate.

Synopsis

Place: around the Crimean port of Nymphæum
Time: 63BC during the conflict between Rome and Pontus

Prologue
Mitridate, having suffered a heavy defeat in battle, is presumed dead. This false news is passed by Arbate, the Governor, to Aspasia (Mitridate's fiancée) and to Farnace and Sifare (Mitridate's sons).

Act 1
Scene 1
Arbate, the governor of Nymphæum, welcomes Sifare. We learn that Sifare resents his brother, Farnace, because of his brother’s strong ties with their enemies, the Romans. Arbate pledges his loyalty to Sifare. Aspasia pleads for Sifare to help her against advances by Farnace. He accepts her plea and reveals his love for her.

Scene 2
Farnace makes his advances to Aspasia. She refuses, supported by Sifare, who protects her from his forceful brother. News arrives that Mitridate is alive and is approaching the city. Arbate urges the brothers to conceal their differences and greet their father. The brothers agree to hide their feelings for Aspasia. Farnace conspires with Marzio, Roman legionary officer, against Mitridate.

Scene 3
Mitridate arrives on the shores of Nymphæaum with Princess Ismene, daughter of his ally the King of Parthia. Mitridate wants Farnace to marry Ismene, his promised bride. Ismene is in love with Farnace but senses problems and is worried about her future. Arbate tells Mitridate that Farnace is pursuing Aspasia, not mentioning Sifare. The jealous Mitridate swears revenge on Farnace.

Act 2
Scene 1
Farnace scorns and threatens Ismene. She tells Mitridate, who suggests that she should marry Sifare. Mitridate asks Aspasia for immediate marriage but she hesitates, proving to him that she is unfaithful. Aspasia confesses love to Sifare but they both agree to part to save their honour. Sifare plans to leave and Aspasia is troubled by the conflict between love and duty.

Scene 2
Mitridate is aware of Farnace's plot against him with the Romans; he plans his revenge, despite Marzio’s offer of peace, and arrests Farnace to execute him. Ismene rescues the prince, who admits his treachery but implicates Sifare. Mitridate tricks Aspasia into admitting her love for Sifare and swears revenge. Aspasia and Sifare wish to die together, in fear of Mitridate’s threats.

Act 3
Scene 1
Ismene, still in love with Farnace, tries to convince Mitridate to forgive Aspasia. The Romans attack and Mitridate leaves for battle. Aspasia contemplates suicide by poison. Sifare also wants to die, and joins his father in the battle.

Scene 2
Marzio liberates Farnace and promises him the rule of Nymphæum. Farnace changes his mind, deciding to side with Mitridate.

Scene 3
Defeated, Mitridate commits suicide, avoiding captivity. Before he dies he gives his blessing to Sifare and Aspasia and forgives Farnace, who now agrees to marry Ismene. All four pledge to free the world from Rome.

Venue Info

Staatsoper Hamburg - Hamburg
Location   Große Theaterstraße 25

Staatsoper Hamburg is the oldest publicly accessible musical theater in Germany, located in Hamburg. It was founded in 1678. With the emergence of the Hamburg Opera House, researchers attribute the formation of a national German opera school.

Opera in Hamburg dates to 2 January 1678 when the Oper am Gänsemarkt was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile. It was not a court theatre but the first public opera house in Germany established by the art-loving citizens of Hamburg, a prosperous member of the Hanseatic League.

The Hamburg Bürgeroper resisted the dominance of the Italianate style and rapidly became the leading musical center of the German Baroque. In 1703, George Friedrich Handel was engaged as violinist and harpsichordist and performances of his operas were not long in appearing. In 1705, Hamburg gave the world première of his opera Nero.

In 1721, Georg Philipp Telemann, a central figure of the German Baroque, joined the Hamburg Opera, and in subsequent years Christoph Willibald Gluck, Johann Adolph Hasse and various Italian companies were among the guests.

To replace the aging wooden structure, the first stone was laid on 18 May 1826 for the Stadt-Theater on the present-day site of the Staatsoper Hamburg. The new theater, with seating for 2,800 guest, was inaugurated less than a year later with Beethoven's incidental music to Egmont.

In 1873, both the exterior and interior of the structure were renovated in the reigning "Gründerzeit" style of the time, and again in 1891, when electric lighting was introduced.

Under the direction of Bernhard Pollini, the house mounted its first complete Ring Cycle in 1879. In 1883, the year of Wagner's death, a cycle comprising nine of his operas commenced. The musical directors Hans von Bülow (from 1887 to 1890) and Gustav Mahler (from 1891 to 1897) also contributed to the fame of the opera house.

In the beginning of the 20th century, opera was an important part of the theatre's repertoire; among the 321 performances during the 1907–08 season, 282 were performances of opera. The Stadt-Theater performed not only established repertoire but also new works, such as Paul Hindemith's Sancta Susanna, Igor Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale, Ernst Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, and Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa. Ferruccio Busoni's Die Brautwahl (1912) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die tote Stadt (1920) both had their world premieres in Hamburg. In the 1930s, after Hitler came to power, the opera house was renamed Hamburgische Staatsoper.

On the night of 2 August 1943, both the auditorium and its neighbouring buildings were destroyed during air raids by fire-bombing; a low-flying airplane dropped several petrol and phosphorus containers onto the middle of the roof of the auditorium, causing it to erupt into a conflagration.

The current Staatsoper opened on 15 October 1955 with Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Hamburg continued to devote itself to new works, such as Hans Werner Henze's The Prince of Homburg (1960), Stravinsky's The Flood (1963), Gian Carlo Menotti's Help, Help, the Globolinks! (1968), and Mauricio Kagel's Staatstheater (1971).

In 1967, under the direction of Joachim Hess, the Staatsoper Hamburg became the first company to broadcasts its operas in color on television, beginning with Die Hochzeit des Figaro (a German translation of Le Nozze di Figaro). Ten of these television productions have been released on DVD by ArtHaus Musik as Cult Opera of the 1970s, as well as separately. All of these were performed in German regardless of the original language (six were written in German, one in French, two in English, and one in Italian).

More recently, Hamburg gave the world premières of Wolfgang Rihm's Die Eroberung von Mexico (1992) and Helmut Lachenmann's Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern (1997), for which it received much international acclaim. The company has won the "Opera House of the Year" award by the German magazine Opernwelt in 1997 and in 2005.

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Hamburg, Germany
Starts at: 18:00
Acts: 3
Duration: 3h 30min
Sung in: Italian
Titles in: German,English
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