The Bride of Messina

Friedrich Schiller's penultimate completed drama 'Die Braut von Messina oder Die feindlichen Brüder' (premiere 1803), tells a freely invented story about a cursed family whose fate is irrevocably fulfilled. Through the use of musically supported choirs that comment on the plot and also actively intervene in it, the "tragedy" written in verse takes on the structure of an ancient tragedy - in the preface "On the use of choirs in tragedy" Schiller explains his intention to transform the "modern common world into the old poetic one". The story is an antique-style dramatic event set in medieval Messina: Don Cesar and Don Manuel love their sister Beatrice, whose true identity is unknown to them. They get into a violent argument, which ends with the murder of Don Manuel by Do.