Poster art campaign on Theaterplatz

The Semperoper Dresden is participating in the citywide poster art campaign with two large-format photos of trailblazing productions. The first image shows a scene from Arnold Schoenberg’s opera »Moses und Aron« in the staging by Calixto Bieito, which premiered at the Semperoper at the beginning of Peter Theiler’s tenure in September 2018. The second image is a scene from Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera »Les Huguenots« in the production by Peter Konwitschny with which Peter Theiler closed his first year as managing director in June 2019. Both scenes are accompanied by quotations from the respective operas, which serve to reinforce the visual message.

Born into Jewish families, both composers were the victims of virulent anti-Semitism. Arnold Schoenberg was forced into exile in 1933, while Giacomo Meyerbeer’s trailblazing compositions prompted Richard Wagner to write his diatribe »Judaism in Music«. Both composers were vilified by the Nazis – and in the post-war years their music only slowly returned to the programmes of Germany’s opera houses.

By remembering and performing these works today, we can spotlight the mistakes of the past – and create a foundation for the art of tomorrow ...