Schumann: Manfred

As a young man, Schumann had got to know Byron's works through his father's publishing business. There's no question that the composer recognized his own psyche in Manfred's rugged soul. But he also responded to the challenge of Byron's artistic concept of 'Manfred as mental theater'. In the Dusseldorf productions, the audience becomes Manfred, experiencing through the eyes of the eponymous hero a projection of the visually alienated world of the Swiss mountains in which the story is set.