“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” Turkish proverb.

The Marriage of Figaro is, at its core, a story about what happens when power is placed in the wrong hands. The Count lives in a world of privilege and entitlement, and he uses that status to pursue Susanna and to test Figaro, assuming their lives and bodies are his to command. Mozart and Da Ponte turn that abuse of power into comedy, but just beneath the laughter is something darker and painfully familiar. Shortly after the premiere in 1786, the world experienced the French Revolution.

We see a very different version of the same impulse in Turandot. There, a terrified princess builds an icy palace around herself, and her fear of intimacy is written in blood across her kingdom. Her need to control, to keep feeling at bay, leaves a trail of executions behind her. Premiering in 1926—exactly a 100 years ago—this opera stands on the edge of a century marked by world wars and the rise of Fascism.

In Götterdämmerung, we move into yet another world disfigured by power: the decaying world of the Gibichungs, led by a weak figurehead and quietly ruled by Hagen, a character who is pure manipulation. This degradation eventually leads to the twilight of the gods and a cataclysmic change in the world. The premiere in 1876—exactly 150 years ago—later became associated with a culture that would help prepare the ground for some of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century. In all three works, a society is bent out of shape by leaders who cannot master their own fear, greed, or desire.

I believe art should never be partisan. Our work is not to take a side, but to tell stories about human beings. I believe in this fiercely. There is nothing political about our spring season. Puccini, Mozart, and Wagner understood something that Shakespeare knew long before them: if you tell the truth about human nature, your story will feel contemporary in any century without naming a party, a policy, or a headline. That is why these stories travel so easily across borders and generations. The faces change, the costumes change, the news cycle changes, but the basic forces—power, fear of death, greed, lust, the possibility of redemption—remain stubbornly the same. Wagner had a specific name for this redemption. He called it redemption through love.

And this is exactly what these operas share: they all end with some form of love breaking through the chaos, providing a glimmer of hope. In Figaro, in Turandot, and in Götterdämmerung, love does not erase the damage, but it opens a door that offers a path out of division and brutality. Each finale, in its own way, insists that redemption is still possible. That is my hope for us as we live through our own unsettled time.

Our performances of The Marriage of Figaro represent the very best we know how to offer you as a leading opera company: extraordinary singers, an imaginative production, a committed orchestra led by a world-class conductor, and the craftsmanship of an entire team behind the scenes. Our standard is simple: what you see and hear at The Atlanta Opera should stand beside any opera house in the world. Our job is to tell timeless, universal stories that remind you that what you are seeing in the world is not new—and to suggest, through music and theater, that love can still tilt the balance.

Tomer Zvulun
Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director
The Atlanta Opera