Lives & Destinies Festival

Destiny has inspired many artistic works over the ages. This festival offers 3 different perspectives on the issue: 3 mythical destinies, 3 masterful works where death is the only end.

The destiny of Nastasya, or Kuma, the beautiful and bewitching innkeeper, with whom Prince Nikita falls madly in love. That is without counting on the fury of his abandoned wife and his son, himself also in love with Kuma. She finishes up poisoned by the prince’s wife, who sees her as a witch, too beautiful and free to live.

The fate of Aeneas, forced to flee Troy by the Greeks. He ends up in Carthage under the reign of Dido, a Syrian from Tyr who fled the civil war. They fall in love but the will of the gods sends the prince to found Rome, abandoning Dido who sets herself on fire.

Finally, the legendary hero Ulysses. Lying on his death bed, surrounded by doctors, the king of Ithaca recalls the story of his return, his fight against the suitors, and his reunion with Penelope, from whom he was separated for so long. In a dream, he relives his epic journey one last time

A triptych of destinies presented through splendid works and the directors’ highly-original perspectives:

• Andriy Zholdak for Tchaikovsky’s The Enchantress
• David Marton for Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Kalle Kalima’s Remembered
• William Kentridge and the Handspring Company for Monteverdi’s Return of Ulysses