A plan by Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) to fulfil a commission from the Teatro San Carlo of Naples by making an opera out of a historic novel about the end of the Florentine Republic was prevented by the prohibition of the censor’s office. The composer and his librettist Salvatore Cammarano decided instead on a libretto after Friedrich Schiller’s “Kabale und Liebe” (intrigue and love). The tragedy was reduced to dimensions suitable for an opera book, not least because the expectations of a bourgeois public and the demands of the censors had to be reconciled. Although on the face of it the text of “Luisa Miller” was more of a harmless family story than the original play, there is an ebullient power evident in Verdi’s music which definitely serves to restore in part the implied social criticism of Schiller’s work. Especially the revolutionary spirit in the figure of father Miller, his intimidation by Wurm and the protestations of the chorus against his arrest mirror the social climate of the time.

The actual theme of “Luisa Miller” is really the conflict of the heroine, whose love for Rodolfo, son of Count von Walter, shipwrecks on the unsurmountable obstacle of social barriers. She becomes the victim of an intrigue by the treacherous castle steward Wurm, who himself has designs on Luisa. When she spurns him, be coerces her in strict confidence to swear her love for him in writing, if her father is not be arrested by Count von Walter. At this Luisa contemplates suicide, though the deed is averted by Miller, but then Rodolfo suddenly appears and challenges Luisa to explain herself. As she has sworn secrecy, only after she has drunk a glass which her lover has poisoned can she tell him the whole truth in the knowledge that she will not survive the breach of her oath.

Carlos Wagner, who already staged Bizet’s “Carmen” for the theatres of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, will direct the drama of this young woman together with the costume designer Christof Cremer and with Kaspar Zwimpfer, from whom the public will gladly recall the impressive sets for Britten’s “Peter Grimes”.

 
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Melodramma tragico in three acts
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano
after the domestic tragedy “Kabale und Liebe” by Friedrich Schiller

 
In Italian with German surtitles
 

Musikalische Leitung Giordano Bellincampi
Inszenierung Carlos Wagner
Bühne Kaspar Zwimpfer
Kostüme Christof Cremer
Licht Volker Weinhart
Chorleitung Gerhard Michalski
Dramaturgie Bernhard F. Loges
 
Der Graf von Walter Thorsten Grümbel
Rodolfo Giancarlo Monsalve
Federica Susan Maclean
Wurm Sami Luttinen
Miller Boris Statsenko
Luisa Olesya Golovneva
Laura Katarzyna Kuncio
Ein Bauer Paul Stefan Onaga
Chor Chor der Deutschen Oper am Rhein
Orchester Duisburger Philharmoniker