The Bassarids

The Bassarids
Opera by Hans Werner Henze
The composer in 1960
Native title
Die Bassariden
Librettist
Based onThe Bacchae
by Euripides
Premiere
6 August 1966 (1966-08-06)

The Bassarids (in German: Die Bassariden) is an opera in one act and an intermezzo, with music by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, after Euripides's The Bacchae.

The conflict in the opera is between human rationality and emotional control, represented by the King of Thebes, Pentheus, and unbridled human passion, represented by the god Dionysus.