Adonis

In the organizer's words:

Opera in three acts by Johann Sigismund Kusser

It's all Cupid's fault. He shoots his arrows indiscriminately, creating not only love, but also a great deal of chaos and confusion. He also accepts commissions, and they don't always have a noble aim. When these commissioned arrows hit Venus herself, the goddess of love, and Adonis, the divine image of beauty, the drama takes its course.

Johann Sigismund Kusser was one of the first cosmopolitans in the world of music and theater. He was born in Pressburg (Bratislava) in 1660, spent his late youth in Stuttgart and studied with Jean-Baptiste Lully in Paris and Versailles. Italy, various German music centers and finally London and Dublin formed his special musical language, which combined the French and Italian styles. He had a decisive influence on the generation of composers that followed him, including Reinhard Keiser, Georg Philipp Telemann and Georg Friedrich Händel. "Adonis" was premiered at the Stuttgart court in the 1699/1700 season.