IDOMENEO - Styriarte

Synopsis
ACT I: IN THE KING’S PALACE IN CRETE: ILIA, THE DAUGHTER
of King Priam, struggles with her fate. After the fall of Troy, the
massacre of her father and brothers, and her disgraceful slavery,
she now has to go through the agonies of love and jealousy, too.
She has fallen in love with Idamante, the son of the Cretan king,
Idomeneo. However, the young prince only seems to be int e-
rested in Electra, Orestes’ sister, who fled from Argos to Crete to
escape her family’s bloody deeds. Torn between her instilled
hatred of Greece and her burgeoning love for a Greek, Ilia does
not dare to confess her feelings to her beloved. Idamante, on the
other hand, declares his love for her and, in an exuberance of
feeling, frees the Trojan prisoners, too. Electra disrupts the
celebration of reconciliation of the two peoples. Arbace, the
prince’s tutor, brings news that King Idomeneo has been caught
in a storm not far from the coast and has drowned. Everybody is
distraught and rushes to the beach, except for Electra, who gives
free reign to her feelings of revenge and jealousy.
In the storm, Idomeneo’s men fight against the wind and the
waves. The king makes a fatal vow to Neptune, the god of the
sea. As soon as he is rescued and reaches the beach, we learn
more about the vow: He is to sacrifice the life of an innocent
person for his own rescued life. The king already has a premonition
of how the shadow of the murdered person will haunt him.
Here comes the victim: The first person that the king encounters
on the beach. It is Idamante, his own son. And yet they do not
recognize each other because the prince was still a child when
Idomeneo went to war. Only after a while does the father suspect
who he is facing. As soon as he is sure, he curses the gods,
rebuffs his son, and forbids him to ever see him again. Idamante
is left behind in despair.
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