The Hostage

Friedrich Schiller’s ballad Die Bürgschaft tells a story of extraordinary friendship, tyranny, life, and death. Deeply impressed by the dramatic potential of this material, Franz Schubert began composing an opera—only to break off precisely at its crucial turning point: Will Kostas, who has stood surety for Damon, be executed by the tyrant Dionysius? How does the highly political opera end for the tyrant under whose rule the entire people suffer?

The renowned author and director Paula Fünfeck, together with conductor Anna-Sophie Brüning, has taken on this rarely performed operatic fragment. Their textual and musical adaptation not only brings Schubert’s Die Bürgschaft to completion, but also expands it further in every direction. First performed as part of the award-winning project Apollo 18! – Music Theatre in a Juvenile Detention Facility, this gripping new version now comes to Linz.