Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans)

Believer, warrior of God, heretic, saint: few female historical figures offer such contrasting views, have been interpreted so differently, so frequently been made the subject of artistic works and inspired as many literary portraits as Jeanne d’Arc. Born in rural France at the beginning of the 15th century, while still a child she heard voices that commanded her in God’s name to defend her homeland against England in the Hundred Years War. She helped the French feudal state to victory and then, once Charles VII had turned away from her due to political differences, was betrayed and fell into the hands of the English, was accused of heresy, condemned and publicly burnt at the stage aged nineteen. 

Friedrich Schiller follows the unorthodox career of this peasant’s daughter from Lorraine from military leader to heretic, albeit »subordinating the historical truth to the laws of poetry«. He departs from the established facts and portrays his maid of Orleans as someone torn between vocation and desire and allows her to die a heroic death on the battlefield. His warrior of God, who sacrifices herself for a vision to the point of self-abandonment, acts in radical defiance of conventional feudal behaviour. Schiller moulds his »Romantic tragedy«– in the words of Thomas Mann – into a poetic soundscape and in   »Die Jungfrau von Orleans« creates a »consummate opera in words«.

The play is directed by Johanna Wehner, whose productions are based on elaborately composed, musically dense text versions. »Die Jungfrau von Orleans« is the theatre and opera director’s first work for the Residenztheater.