Verdi's Don Carlo at Paris Opéra Bastille

Verdi’s Don Carlos, commissioned by the Paris Opera where it premiered in 1867, brought a new direction to the composer’s musical inspiration: a dark and intense score, in which political, religious and moral issues stir characters in the throes of inner torment.

Flowing into the mould of French grand opera without abandoning melodic richness, the composer of La Traviata and Rigoletto places less emphasis on the love story than on broader themes such as the solitude of power or the thirst for freedom, embodied by the Spanish infant, Don Carlos, and his friend Rodrigue, defender of the Flemish people.

This fascinating work’s Shakespearean dimension was bound to appeal to Krzysztof Warlikowski, whose staging reveals the secret inner worlds of the characters, prisoners of the court, the Church and etiquette.