Maid of Orléans

In the early 19th century, Friedrich Schiller, in “The Maid of Orleans,” showed Joan falling in love with an English knight.

This year, Marciniak’s feminist deconstruction of Schiller’s “The Maid of Orleans” was invited to two of Germany’s most important theater festivals — Theatertreffen, in Berlin, and Radikal Jung, in Munich — and the director made her Deutsches Theater Berlin debut with a cheeky and energetic production of Goethe’s “Werther.”

In one of her final performances, at age 70, she appeared with the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center in 2005, singing the Russian-language role of Joan of Arc in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans.”

From her professional debut at Modena’s Teatro Municipale as Micaëla in Bizet’s “Carmen” on March 3, 1955, to her opera finale as Joan of Arc in Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans” at the Washington National Opera on April 11, 2005, Freni chose roles with care and caution.

Working collaboratively with Versace’s Lucio Di Rosa, Roach says he helped design the dress after the Maid of Orléans came to him in a dream, riding a horse and waving a sword.