Castor et Pollux at Komische Oper Berlin

Barrie Kosky’s celebrated production, winner of the most important British theatre prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, can now also be experienced at the Komische Oper Berlin with new staging. Rameau’s masterpiece about four people inextricably bound to one another by a web of jealousy, passion and hatred here features the musical director Christian Curnyn, a specialist in the sphere of baroque music, and it is the first time the work by this French composer has been full performed at one of the three big opera houses of Berlin.

Phébé loves Castor. But Castor loves Phébé’s sister.
Télaïre.Télaïre does love Castor… but she is promised to Castor's brother,Pollux, who also loves her. The conflict which begins Rameau’s opera is simplyimpossible to resolve. All four of the main characters are prisoners of their ownemotions. With their love, their hatred, their passion and their jealousy theymanage to create a prison for themselves, their very own hell on earth.

In his role as reformer of French opera, whose creative works surely influenced contemporaries such as Christoph Willibald Gluck, Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote a uniquely dense work which is in many respects far in advance of its day. It is not only that the dramatic structure of the opera has a truly modern character, with the plot moved along by a swift sequence of scenes. In addition, the musical structure, constantly focusing on the dramatic events, provides a very special harmony, and the seamless transitions between recitative, arioso and aria lends the drama an attraction which audiences find virtually impossible to resist.