About the work
Opera in three acts by Lorenzo Ferrero to a libretto by Giuseppe Di Leva, first performed on 21 February 1989 at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, directed by Mario Martone and conducted by Roberto Abbado. Ferrero composed the work for the bicentenary of the French Revolution.
Plot
The opera depicts three encounters between the Girondin sympathiser Charlotte Corday and the Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat in Paris, culminating in his assassination on 13 July 1793, when Corday stabs him in his bath.
Cultural significance
At its centre is the question of how far an individual may go when resorting to violence in the name of a conviction believed to be just. Besides Rome, the opera has also been staged in Bremen (1990) and at the Mittelsächsisches Theater (2013).