Phèdre

Phèdre is the wife of Theseus, King of Athens, whom everyone believes to be dead, so long has he been unable to return from war. Alone in the palace with her stepson Hippolytus, Phaedra, the instrument of Aphrodite's vengeance, the goddess of Love, feels an irrepressible attraction for him. Œnone, her passionate nurse, urges her to give in to her desire, but when Theseus returns unexpectedly, she accuses Hippolytus of incest... His furious father curses him and he dies.

In a blood-red set, Muriel Mayette-Holtz's staging of Racine's classic finds an original rhythm that sings of thwarted love, and offers the alexandrines the echo of Théramène's slam as the common thread of this tragic story.