Schumann’s “The Bride of Messina” Overture: Music for a Greek Tragedy
Friedrich Schiller’s 1803 tragedy, The Bride of Messina, tells the story of a bitter rivalry between brothers who have fallen in love with the same woman, Beatrice. She turns out to be their long-lost sister. Amid jealous discord and a clash between paganism and Christianity, the turbulent love triangle ends in a murder-suicide. The two-act play was unusual and controversial at the time due to Schiller’s incorporation of a Greek chorus, a device …