Il prigioniero | Das Gehege

Both operas have strong political implications. Dallapiccolla‘s Il prigioniero, first premiered in 1949, was one of the most successful and most frequently staged contemporary operas in West-Germany during the time of the Cold War – a plea for individual freedom versus totalitarian suppression. The only disturbing element is, however, that it is the jailer himself who tries to influence the prisoner with his ideas of freedom before he personally escorts the allegedly released prisoner to the stake. Is the opera, after all, not so much a confirmation of the so-called free world, but far more a depiction of its ideological cul-de-sacs?

Rihm‘s opera Das Gehege which was first premiered in 2005, starts right at the end of the Cold War with yet another story about an ambiguous relationship between prisoner and jailerr: During the night of the Fall of the Berlin Wall a woman attempts to entice an eagle in the zoo into freedom. The encounter between the two leads to the animal being slaughtered by the woman.