»La damoiselle élue« von Claude Debussy / »Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher« von Arthur Honegger

In the organizer's words:

Are we falling back into the Middle Ages? In their visually stunning production from 2017, the Catalan theater makers from La Fura dels Baus pose pressing questions of our time. Honegger's dramatic oratorio is preceded by a cantata by Debussy as a floating prologue. Carried by delicate sounds, a young deceased woman - the "chosen one" - looks down wistfully on her beloved, who is still on earth. St. Joan, on the other hand, gazes up to heaven from the pyre, longingly hoping for redemption, but also full of mortal fear. At the moment of her flaming death, librettist Paul Claudel has her relive the stages of her journey: How the voices she heard called her to her warlike mission; how she led the king to his coronation in Reims and defeated the English in Orléans; finally, how she was put on trial in Rouen. In the process, she encounters a disoriented crowd that sometimes cheers her on, sometimes allows itself to be incited to a witch hunt. The mythical figure of light unfolds her fascination with force.