Six years before Rigoletto, Giuseppe Verdi had already composed a gripping drama about love and revenge: Ernani, his great success as a composer. The opera was also based on a play by the French writer Victor Hugo, whose text inspired Verdi's unique style, with moving arias, stirring choruses and scenes of high drama: Elvira is desired by three men, among them the King of Spain and her old uncle. But she loves above all the thief Ernani, who has a score to settle with the king...

For director Lotte de Beer, the absurd plot of the opera represents the absurdity of humanity: ‘It is a story of failure about a failed being: us humans. We always have the option to do good, but for some reason we don't do it. [Everyone talks about honour, love, happiness and friendship, but what we do is indulge in revenge and bloodshed, murder and suicide’. ‘As much as this brilliant and precisely executed evening is always one too many, it moves slyly just below the threshold of caricature. Lurid drama, bizarre humour and splatter comedy serve only one purpose: to unmask the guys’. (Münchner Merkur).

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