Two years after the triumphant success of the Three Penny Opera, the Berliner Ensemble and Robert Wilson present the Italian première of Shakespeare’s Sonnets at the Festival of Spoleto, with original music by the Canadian songwriter Rufus Wainwright.

Staged in Berlin in 2009 for the fourth centennial of the publishing of the sonnets, for this performance Wilson has selected twenty-five amongst the one hundred and fifty-four written by Shakespeare, accepting the challenge to stage one of the English playwright’s rare works which was not meant for the theatre.

His direction – in the usual perfection – plays ironically by confusing the genres. Georgette Dee – famous German cabaret performer – joins stage stars such as Inge Keller, Jürgen Holtz, Traute Hoess and Sylvie Rohrer – and the extraordinary company actors of the Berliner Ensemble who act and sing, bringing Bard’s immortal lines onto the set.  

Wilson stages several Shakespearean characters, from the leprechaun to the fool, from Cupid to the mysterious dark dame, from the Queen of England to Shakespeare himself.
The director’s ability to “tell” the story by means of images puts himself at the service of Shakespeare’s verses, assisted by the music of Rufus Wainwright, who for this opera has used different musical styles that contribute to accompanying the audience on a dreamlike journey beyond time.

A stage première which is already a classic.