About the work
A grand historical-romantic opera in three acts by Gaspare Spontini to a German libretto by Ernst Raupach, Spontini's final opera and his only work in German. It premiered on 12 June 1829 at the Königliches Opernhaus in Berlin; Spontini substantially reworked the piece for a revival in 1837.
Plot
Set amid the medieval conflict between Emperor Henry VI and the Welf faction, Agnes, a cousin of the emperor, is betrothed to Henry, son of Henry the Lion. When the emperor instead promises her to the French king Philip II Augustus, the couple flees and marries in secret. After an assassination attempt on the emperor, Henry shields him, and the dying Philip pardons Henry while the emperor blesses the marriage.
Cultural significance
As an example of German operatic Romanticism of the 1820s, the work sits alongside Weber's Euryanthe and anticipates Wagner's Tannhäuser. Because Spontini's original score was long thought lost, modern revivals were mostly sung in Italian until a 2018 production in Erfurt restored the original German for the first time.