| Antigonae | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Carl Orff | |
 | |
| Language | German |
| Based on | Friedrich Hölderlin's translation of Antigone by Sophocles |
| Premiere | 9 August 1949 |
Antigonae (Antigone), written by Carl Orff, was first presented on 9 August 1949 under the direction of Ferenc Fricsay in the Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, Austria, as part of the Salzburg Festival. Antigonae is in Orff's words a "musical setting" for the Greek tragedy of the same name by Sophocles. However, it functions as an opera.
The opera is a line-by-line setting of the German translation of Sophocles' play by Friedrich Hölderlin. However, Orff did not treat Hölderlin's translation of the play as a traditional opera libretto, but rather as the basis for a "musical transformation" of the tragic language of the drama of Ancient Greece. Sophocles's play was written in 442 BC, and Hölderlin's 1804 translation copies faithfully the mood and movement of Greek tragedy.[1][2]
- ^ Schäfer, Walter Erich (1960). Carl Orff: A Report in Words and Pictures. p. 12. B. Schott's Söhne
- ^ s.n. (2019). "Antigonæ - a tragedy by Sophocles in the translation by Friedrich Hölderlin (1949)". Carl Orff-Stiftung