Wahlverwandtschaften

Husband and wife Eduard and Charlotte, who are both married for the second time, have invited two guests. The rational Captain is supposed to keep the impulsive, easily bored Eduard company. And the energetic Charlotte invites her foster daughter, the young Ottilie. Eduard, however, falls head over heels in love with Ottilie, and the Captain and Charlotte also develop dangerously strong feelings for one another. A child is conceived during a last night of love between Charlotte and Eduard, but the betrayal can no longer be concealed. An arrangement is sought. There is a fatal disaster; only one of the couples survives. In his novel, “Die Wahlverwandschaften” (“Elective Affinities”), Goethe applies a chemical experiment of his time to human relationships: What happens when certain substances exhibit so strong an affinity to one another that they have to enter into a new liaison? With this text, Goethe, artist and explorer of life, takes a radically modern look at human beings and the way they interact with each other and their natural surroundings. Director Felicitas Brucker will be introducing herself to Zurich audiences for the first time with this première production.