Gianni Schicchi

Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi takes place here in a world of ball nights, champagne and social self-performance. In the newly created prologue “Eine Ballnacht”, Buoso Donati celebrates a decadent ball with family and guests. Behind elegance and operetta glamour appears a society that organizes relationships through wealth, status and visibility — with Buoso himself as its despotic center.

The prologue shows a world before its collapse. It reveals the rituals, dependencies and power structures that already exist beneath the surface of the opera and only become fully visible once the crisis begins.

When Puccini’s opera starts, only the empty shell of this world remains. The social masks have fallen, and the Donati family gradually turns into caricatures of itself in the fight over the inheritance.

Lilli Fischer is interested in the tragedy of the characters. What first appears as a grotesque inheritance dispute becomes the story of people desperately trying to protect their social position while their world is already falling apart. In the end, everyone loses.