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Guggeis conducts a rarity: Chausson's "Le Roi Arthus"

Additional cheers erupted at the Frankfurt Opera House on Sunday evening when, following the premiere of Ernest Chausson's "Le Roi Arthus," Thomas Guggeis was awarded the "Conductor of the Year" certificate by the trade journal "Opernwelt." And for the third consecutive year, the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra received the "Orchestra of the Year" award. The double honor could not have been more perfectly timed.

"Le Roi Arthurs"

For previously, the profound knowledge and gripping passion of the only 33-year-old General Music Director had once again been audible to all, who exquisitely brought out the stylistic range in Chausson's main work: From the Tristan fateful harmony of the love duet in the first act to the impressionistic shimmer of the Merlin scene in the second, up to the complex, multi-part Avalon final chorus.

The singers also shone with captivating expression and powerful voices – above all Domen Krizaj in the title role, the only one with prior experience from the Tyrolean Festival in Erl in 2022, but also the debutants Magdalena Hinterdobler as the passionate Queen Genièvre and Thomas Blondelle as her lover Lancelot. Ensemble members Kihwan Sim as Merlin and Lancelot's jealous antagonist, Erik van Heyningen as Mordred, also left a memorable impression.

Director Manuel Schmitt transposes the Celtic legend of King Arthur and the downfall of his Knights of the Round Table, to which Ernest Chausson refers in his opera premiered at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1903, to an apocalyptic future. Instead of horses, the Knights of the Round Table battle swarms of drones, while Arthur's sword Excalibur and his shield Pridwann are displayed in museum cases. The apple trees of the wizard Merlin have been felled and burned, and nature is devastated. At the same time, his ideal of democratically gathering around a round table is eroding. With the apotheotic chants of Avalon, however, Schmitt allows a final glimmer of hope to appear on the horizon. Great applause for all involved.

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