DON CARLO

It's a long opera, that's true. But it has to be like this", justified

Verdi in 1871 the dimensions of his Don Carlo. Nevertheless, the constraints of the theater business later caused him to streamline the opera. For the 2013 Salzburg Festival, Peter Stein and Antonio Pappano have again worked on the original version of the opera - but in Italian and without the ballet. On the other hand, there are also passages that had been cancelled at short notice before the premiere in 1867, such as the opera's opening prelude with the chorus of woodcutters and their families. The retention of the Fontainebleau act makes the further plot and the psychological development of Elisabetta di Valois and Don Carlo incomparably more coherent. In the forest of Fontainebleau, where the French king's daughter meets the Spanish infante promised to her, the two are granted their only moment of happiness. With the peace agreement between Spain and France, it is over: Elisabetta is now to marry not Carlo, but the Spanish King Filippo. For reasons of state, she agrees - and Carlos' bride unexpectedly becomes his mother: a traumatic experience. From now on, we are dealing with mentally damaged people.