One tenet associated with the Enlightenment is that Reason has the power to reveal Truth. The central principle of Kant's treatise An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment"? (»Have courage to use your own understanding!«) reminds us that it was not just violence from without but doubtless also a timorous internal acceptance of being treated like a child that forced obedience on men.

Consequently there was a deep-seated belief that by publicly formulating human rights in terms of Liberty - Equality - Fraternity the people had paved the way for their implementation. Reason, that natural precautionary measure, would take care of the rest.

The course taken by the French Revolution, of course, from the march on the Bastille in 1789 to the end of the Terreur, the Jacobin Reign of Terror, in 1794 is anything but a testimony to the accuracy of this thesis. The perverted ethos of an apotheosised morale that would justify the liquidation of anyone not towing the official line gives us good grounds for doubt. And this doubt in the power of reason is hardly diminished as we watch the Terror giving rise to the dictatorship of the First Consul and later to the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Nonetheless, the events of these years changed the face of Europe forever. The germ of revolt, the idea of the emancipation of the citizenry, had taken root and the various forms of monarchical repression remained à la longue the futile attempts of a small elite to hang on to power. Yet it was not until the emancipation movements of the late 19th and early 20th century that the ideology and achievements of the Revolution found expression on the stage; in a newly unified Italy young composers were falling over themselves to address the subject of France in the years between 1789 and the fall of the Napoleonic empire, partly to recall the roots of their own, freshly-won liberty. In ANDRÉ CHÉNIER Umberto Giordano created the first classic work on the theme, based moreover on a libretto originally earmarked by Luigi Illica to be written by Alberto Franchetti. In his GERMANIA, with its portrayal of an Allemagne en résistance Franchetti, was hard at work creating a picture of post-revolutionary Europe no less gloomy than that depicted by Giacomo Puccini in his TOSCA [whose libretto was likewise originally to be offered to Franchetti]. Ottorino Respighi's MARIE VICTOIRE, too, which spans the years from the Jacobin Terror to the beginning of Napoleon's dictatorship, saw no reason for optimism, a view of events that had not brightened by the time Francis Poulenc came to compose his DIALOGUES OF THE CARMELITES decades later. Before all this, of course, and even pre-dating the storming of the Bastille, came Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's chirpy MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, arguably the burnished side of the same coin!

The verdict on whether this celebration of works bears any comparison with the momentous events of 1789, whose 222nd anniversary is coming round in 2011, will be a matter for debate and more detailed analysis. The Deutsche Oper Berlin is keen to be a forum for these discussions.