The year is 1764. For over a year, Josef has been leading a precarious life in Venice. He hopes to become an opera composer. The city, full of talented and already-established composers, seems closed to him. Looking for work as a violinist, he comes into the orbit of a rich young woman. Thanks to her, he gets the opportunity to play at salons. But his real opportunity arises when he becomes the lover of a libertine marquise. She teaches him worldly manners, rids him of signs of a provincial upbringing and introduces him to a hedonistic existence free from religious intolerance. Thus transformed, Josef gets an incan incredible commission: to write an opera for the San Carlo, Europe's largest theatre.

The Bohemian

The murder of Abel by his brother Cain is one of those subjects that fascinated a century preoccupied by theological matters. That first murder was to engender all humanity and cast the ambiguous figure of Cain in the role of the father of civilisation. In the wake of Moses und Aron, stage director Romeo Castellucci returns to the Paris Opera with this oratorio, exploring its metaphysical dimension and the role of evil within the divine plan. Scarlatti’s music evokes the theme.

Scarlatti: Il Primo Omicidio

In March 2024, to mark the 300th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion, premiered in Leipzig in 1724, Berlin-born Sasha Waltz presented a movingly intense choreographed version on the stage of the Opéra de Dijon.