This month brings yet another operatic wonder from Freiburg, again conducted by Fabrice Bollon. Karl Goldmark’s Die Königin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba) became one of the most-performed operas of the turn of the century. The Queen of Sheba, a ravishing femme fatale, accepts King Solomon’s invitation to come from Sheba to Jerusalem, and the young Assad falls madly in love with her along the way. Whenever the two are alone, she makes no secret of her love for him, but in public she denies that she has ever met him or has tender feelings for him. Languishing in melancholy and grief, the unhappy male lover in the end finds only one way out: death for love.
