A monastery is the setting for a three-way wedding: young Luisa was actually supposed to marry the rich fishmonger Mendoza, but she loves the attractive and penniless Antonio. Her old nurse, the duenna, has long had her eye on the fishmonger and is only too happy to swap clothes and roles with young Luisa. Her brother Ferdinand, in turn, loves the rich Clara, who has decided to go to the monastery after an argument. So begins a turbulent game of confusion in which not only the always drunken monks of the monastery lose track of who actually wants to marry whom - but in the end they give the three couples their blessing. Sergei Prokofiev's The Betrothal in the Monastery is based on an English comedy from the 18th century. In the midst of a time of fear and violence, between Stalinist terror and war, Prokofiev wrote this lyrical-comic opera that does not fit in at all with the state's guidelines for proletarian art and patriotic propaganda. Instead, Prokofiev's Obrutschenije v monastyre presents people with a great deal of wit and charm who, with their timeless desires and weaknesses, could have come straight out of the Commedia dell'Arte. Damiano Michieletto, who enjoyed many successes at the Theater an der Wien, directs this turbulent comedy of errors about the fish trade and carnal desires.
Premiere: March 26, 2025
Further performances: March 28 and 31; April 2, 5, 7 and 9, 2025
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