Das Schweigen der Sirenen
The opera draws on Franz Kafka’s short story about Odysseus, Circe and the Sirens.
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The opera draws on Franz Kafka’s short story about Odysseus, Circe and the Sirens.
A country doctor is summoned to a distant house to treat a seriously ill boy. His maid Rosa cannot find a horse, but a mysterious stable boy arrives with horses and assaults her. The doctor is transported to the patient’s house and worries about Rosa. The boy has a deep wound and begs to die. His family forces the doctor into the boy’s bed, threatening him if the patient is not healed. The doctor escapes on a horse but cannot return home and is condemned to travel eternally.
A Visitor arrives at a remote penal colony to witness an execution by a machine that inscribes a prisoner’s crimes into his flesh before killing him. The Officer, devoted to the device and its dead inventor, hopes the Visitor will endorse its supposed redemptive purpose. The Visitor opposes the procedure but refuses to intervene. The Officer releases the prisoner and takes his own place in the machine. It malfunctions, kills him quickly, and destroys itself; the Visitor leaves the island.
Poul Ruders’s opera combines scenes from Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel The Trial with letters from Kafka’s life concerning Felice Bauer and Grete Bloch. The libretto was written by Paul Bentley and translated into Danish by Karen Hoffmann.
On his 30th birthday, bank manager Josef K. is arrested for an unidentified crime. He searches the court system for answers, consults a lawyer and a painter, and hears a parable from a priest. On the eve of his 31st birthday, the guards take him away and execute him.
A prince considers placing a guard in his ancestors’ tomb. The warden describes his work and his midnight encounters with Duke Friedrich, while a countess seeks to offer the prince her hand.
The opera draws on Franz Kafka’s short story about Odysseus, Circe and the Sirens.
A country doctor is summoned to a distant house to treat a seriously ill boy. His maid Rosa cannot find a horse, but a mysterious stable boy arrives with horses and assaults her. The doctor is transported to the patient’s house and worries about Rosa. The boy has a deep wound and begs to die. His family forces the doctor into the boy’s bed, threatening him if the patient is not healed. The doctor escapes on a horse but cannot return home and is condemned to travel eternally.
A Visitor arrives at a remote penal colony to witness an execution by a machine that inscribes a prisoner’s crimes into his flesh before killing him. The Officer, devoted to the device and its dead inventor, hopes the Visitor will endorse its supposed redemptive purpose. The Visitor opposes the procedure but refuses to intervene. The Officer releases the prisoner and takes his own place in the machine. It malfunctions, kills him quickly, and destroys itself; the Visitor leaves the island.
Poul Ruders’s opera combines scenes from Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel The Trial with letters from Kafka’s life concerning Felice Bauer and Grete Bloch. The libretto was written by Paul Bentley and translated into Danish by Karen Hoffmann.
On his 30th birthday, bank manager Josef K. is arrested for an unidentified crime. He searches the court system for answers, consults a lawyer and a painter, and hears a parable from a priest. On the eve of his 31st birthday, the guards take him away and execute him.
A prince considers placing a guard in his ancestors’ tomb. The warden describes his work and his midnight encounters with Duke Friedrich, while a countess seeks to offer the prince her hand.