Lyric-comic opera in four acts

Libretto by Sergej Prokofjew and Mira Mendelssohn

Of all places, a monastery serves as the location for a triple wedding: young Luiza was supposed to marry the wealthy fish merchant Mendoza, but she loves the handsome and destitute Antonio. Her old governess, the Duenna, has had her eye on the fish merchant for a long time now and is only too willing to swap clothes and roles with the young Luiza. Luiza’s brother Ferdinand, for his part, is in love with the wealthy Clara who, however, has decided to become a nun after they had an argument. And so the stage is set for a merry game of mistaken identity in which it is not just the permanently drunk monks in the monastery who lose track of who is supposed to marrying whom – but who eventually end up giving the three couples their blessing. Sergei Prokofiev’s Betrothal in a Monastery is based on an English comedy from the 18th century. In the midst of a time of fear and violence, between Stalinist terror and war, Prokofiev wrote this lyric-comic opera that is about as out of line with the state directives for proletarian art and patriotic propaganda as it was possible to be. Instead, Prokofiev’s Obrutschenije w monastyre is an exceedingly witty and charming portrayal of a group of people who could have stepped straight out of the commedia dell’arte. Damiano Michieletto, who has already enjoyed numerous successes at the Theater an der Wien, directs this tumultuous comedy about mistaken identities, the fish trade and pleasures of the flesh.

In Russian with German and English surtitles

Introduction to the work 30 minutes before curtain-up