Singer

This opera is the world in a theatrical nutshell: it deals with growing older, with trials and tribulations, with intransparent decisions. One person searches for individuality, another is too lazy to do so. Others postulate that the community is the only adequate place for the individual. Power has either been legitimised by long tradition or usurped by new regimes. Values such as assimilation and loyalty are set against self-assertiveness and independence. There is loving and dreaming, cheating and trusting. Suicides are prevented, tests passed, adventures survived. Who is right? Who has been wronged? The world of the magic flute is opaque, and everyone is looking for a pathway: within it, into it or out of it. Who holds the reigns? Who can be trusted? Could it be music?

EPSG:4326

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

Staatsoper Hamburg

As a punishment for lacking compassion, the writer «Ich» (or «I») is forced to take in an idiot at home. This seems like an easy task: «Ich» sets out to choose his idiot and is quite pleased with himself and his willingness to host a «holy fool». The idiot seems to fit obediently into the lives of «Ich» and his wife, except for the fact that he barely speaks—aside from an occasional «Äch!», he doesn't say a word. But when the idiot suddenly, and without warning, defecates on the carpet one day, an uncontrollable spiral of violence, sex, and anarchy begins. Alfred Schnittke's opera Leben mit einem Idioten premiered in Amsterdam in 1992. The titular idiot was quickly interpreted as a caricature of Lenin, and the absurd, grotesque story as a biting parody of everyday life in the Soviet Union. However, the composer himself pointed out that his opera is 'by no means solely about Communism' but more broadly about a condition in which «the irrational dominates the rational». Thus, director Kirill Serebrennikov will bring the piece to the stage as the dystopian, contemporary story of a couple whose idiot becomes the catalyst for their already toxic relationship—a catalyst that brings the darkest, most destructive urges of human nature to the surface, along with an inclination for aggression and violence. Schnittke’s music, which combines quotes from Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, the Communist Internationale, a folk song about a birch tree, a tango from the 1930s, and further echoes of Chopin, Mahler, Shostakovich, and others in a polystylistic collage technique, has great potential for wit and irony, which will unfold under the direction of Jonathan Stockhammer with the Philharmonia Zurich. Susanne Elmark, Bo Skovhus, and the Zurich Opera Chorus, who will be on stage throughout the evening, take on the enormous challenges of their roles.

Leben mit einem Idioten

Opernhaus Zürich

With the hegemony of the gods at its zenith at the close of THE RHINEGOLD and the gods ensconced in the castle of Valhalla, trouble is brewing in THE VALKYRIE. The mortals are power-crazed, mistrust and materialism rule and all that the gods can think about is enforcing the old codes rather than questioning their raison d’être. Siblings Siegmund and Sieglinde are condemned to death because there is no place for their special brand of love in society. Brünnhilde, a Valkyrie, is charmed by them and dares to defy her father Wotan’s sentence by taking the pair under her wing. In THE VALKYRIE Wagner makes it plain whose side he is on: in the big love scene between Siegmund and Sieglinde, in which the elemental force of love outpunches all social mores, and in the evolution of Brünnhilde’s character, whose conduct is at first motivated by intuitive sympathy but morphs into deliberate action as a protest against inhumanity and injustice.

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Matthew Newlin

Events

Upcoming events

17 - 27 May, 2026

Der Ring des Nibelungen – Die Walküre · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Past events

Dec 21, 2024 - Jan 3, 2026

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) · Staatsoper Hamburg

Nov 29 - Dec 1, 2024

Leben mit einem Idioten · Opernhaus Zürich

Future and recently performed repertoire

Tamino in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart

Staatsoper Hamburg

Siegmund in Die Walküre by Wagner

Deutsche Oper Berlin

About

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