Johanna auf dem Scheiterhaufen

"Kill her!" is the sudden cry from every corner. Not long before, everyone had acclaimed Joan, followed her in the battle against the English and seen her as the saviour of France. Now, the Maid of Orleans is to be burnt at the stake and the Dominican brother Dominic once again looks through the chapters of her life …

Art is a metaphor for the immortal.

Ernst Fuchs

The oratorio in 11 scenes about the Maid of Orleans and her influence on political events in English-occupied France in the 15th century begins and ends at the stake, where Joan stands aghast facing her violent death as a wrongfully condemned heretic. The Swiss composer Arthur Honegger was commissioned to write the work in 1935 for the dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein, in the time of burgeoning National Socialism on the eve of the Second World War – which gave the story of the battle of the French freedom fighter a nightmarish sense of topicality. After the end of the War and the withdrawal of the German occupying forces, the authors underlined this contemporary reference by adding a new prologue praising Joan as the saviour of France. The work received its first concert performance on 12 May 1938 in Basel, and the first staged version followed in Zurich four years later. Audiences and the press were unanimous in their praise for the oratorio, which moves between speech and song, for its successful mixture of elements of ancient drama, the mystery play, popular theatre, cinematography and even Japanese no theatre and for the amazing breadth of musical styles it contained, from Gregorian chant to modern jazz rhythms. This work, which literally trembles with passion, is being performed in a semi-staged version in the Old Congress Hall.