In the organizer's words:

Co-production with the Kammerakademie Potsdam

in Italian with German surtitles

"Zanaida" was premiered at the King's Theatre in London in 1763 and, together with "Orione", is one of two new works with which Johann Christian Bach successfully continued the operatic output he had previously begun in Italy. The youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach - the only one of the family who loved opera - was an avant-gardist of his time, combining stylistic elements from the Baroque and Classical periods. The librettist Giovanni Gualberto Bottarelli based the text on Pietro Metastasio's first opera libretto: "Siface, re di Numidia".
The Turkish princess Zanaida travels to Persia with a delegation to marry King Tamasse and seal the peace between the two peoples. Tamasse, however, loves Osira and plots against Zanaida with the help of his mother Roselane. Her execution is imminent.
Only rediscovered in 2010 in a private American collection, the play unfolds its plot along the conflicts of its characters, whose freedom and self-determination are in danger of being crushed in a mixture of personal interests, political power structures and heroic idealism. Johann Christian Bach sets their feelings of love and hate to music that is both captivatingly virtuoso and enchanting.

Introduction to the work one hour before the start at the Hotel Brandenburger Tor (except on February 27)