Don Karlos

Young Karlos loves Elisabeth and she loves him, but then his father marries his son's fiancée. Karlos cannot get over this blow. Elisabeth, on the other hand, resigns herself to her unhappy marriage. A family tragedy that turns into a national crisis, because Carlos is not just a young man, but the heir to the Spanish crown. His father Philip rules over the largest empire that has ever existed, where "the sun never sets", and which had to be secured through his marriage to Elisabeth of Valois. But the challenges for Philip are immense. There is an uprising in the Netherlands against Spanish-Catholic rule, the Emperor in Vienna wants to expand his empire and the Turks are besieging the West. Philip holds out against them with an iron hand. He did not want to surrender a single inch to his enemies. To achieve this goal, he also deploys rigorous hardliners who literally walk over dead bodies.

Marquis Posa, a childhood friend of Carlos, returns to the Spanish court one day and asks Carlos to go with him to the Netherlands, away from Spain and the court. But Carlos cannot leave Elisabeth behind and is also caught up in a love intrigue involving the Duchess of Eboli. Posa approaches Philip to change his mind: "Give him freedom of thought!" he demands of the king. In this central scene, the arguments for freedom, equality and fraternity are weighed against the political raison d'être of a state. What is the point of freedom if the cornerstones of coexistence are eroding? But Philip is prepared to make concessions and offers Posa an office in the state. Karlos, however, sees this as treason on the part of his friend.

Schiller's drama about the historical figures of Spanish history is considered one of the greatest plays in world literature and a prime example of a drama of ideas that has lost none of its topicality. Realpolitik versus political utopia - two characters from two opposing positions argue with each other and yet never leave the one decisive basis: both want the best for the world in which people live. They are not fighting for their own interests, but for universal values and goals. A cosmos of ideas that real politics seems to be increasingly abandoning in many regions of our time.