Apollo et Hyacinthus
Apollo et Hyacinthus
Wolfgang-Amadeus Mozart
Latin comedy
Duration: 1 hour 10 minutes (without intermission)
Libretto by Rufinus Widl
Stage Director - Dmitry Bertman
Musical Director - Viktoria Unguryanu
Set and Costume Designers - Igor Nezhny and Tatiana Tulubieva
Premiere: 12.01.2001
Language of performance: Latin, Russian
"Mozart is a universal genius. To talk about Mozart – it's all the same what to speak about God"
Edvard Grieg
Do you know that every opera has its own flavor? "Apollo and Hyacinthus" in "Helikon-Opera" will prove it!
Opera "Apollo and Hyacinthus" was written by Mozart when he was 11 years old. What was the occasion? The end of an academic year at the University of Salzburg. May 1767 went down in history of this respectable university thanks to the young genius. He presented to the professors his first opera, based on the plot of the ancient Greek myth from “The Metamorphoses” of Ovidius.
The performance was acted out by students and had a huge success. In "Helikon" the first opera of Mozart prospers as a "family night with wine and dessert". It is staged in Chekhov`s sarcastic style where life and theatre, imperceptibly merged into a single unit, make one think about the present here and now...
Young and beautiful Hyacinthus, King Ebulas of Sparta, powerful god Apollo, cunning Zephyr and tender Melia — they all play the game of love, they plot and scheme through the wonderful music of Mozart.
According to the legend, in honour of the lost beloved Hyacinthus Apollo turns the drops of his blood into a beautiful flower - as fragile as human life. The fragrance of hyacinth in the theatre hall will remind us that life is beautiful, as long as there is a place for true Love and Music in it!
Summary
Hyacinthus, a son of king Oebalus of Sparta, is a lover of a powerful god Apollo. But as the king and his children Hyacinthus and Melia are bringing gifts to the Apollo’s altar, the god of the West Wind, Zephyr also makes a declaration of love to the beautiful youth. Apollo is furious to hear of it and doesn’t want to accept the king’s gifts. Only the Hyacinthus’s prayers have mollified the god’s anger. The vauntful Oebalus wants to marry Melia to Apollo. During the sports tournament the insidious Zephyr guided by his revenge to Apollo, directs the Apollo’s discus to Hyacinthus. The youth has been gravely wounded. Zephyr blames Apollo in the Hyacinthus’s death and asks Oebalus for the unalloyed Melia’s hand in marriage. But in his agony Hyacinthus names his real killer. Apollo has come back and turns the drops of the Hyacinthus’s blood into a marvelous flower in memory of his beloved…