Opera in seven scenes
Text by Händl Klaus
Commissioned by Oper Frankfurt, world premiere 22nd January 2023
Introductory talks (in German) 3o minutes before "curtain up" in the Bockenheimer Depot, available here on video shortly before opening night and everywhere where podcasts can be found.
Performed in German & English, with German surtitles
Aurelia, a woman in her early 50s, widowed for 10 years, lives with her children Anna and Edgar.
The relationship between mother and daughter is particularly complicated and fraught; their affections obscured by their constantly feeling mutually offended and misunderstandings. Anna shuns everything Aurelia adores – nature and what’s natural. And while the mother yearns for passionate love and struggles with the fact that her childbearing years are over, the daughter, miserable because of her clubfoot, has forsworn love and taken refuge in abstract art.
Edgar’s being taught English by Ken, an American student, who’s almost the same age. Aurelia falls head over heels in love with the young man and Ken feels the same way. Completely engrossed in her passion Aurelia even starts feeling physically rejuvenated when she starts to bleed, which Anna finds worrying.
Just when she’s never felt happier Aurelia is told by Dr. Muthesius, a family friend, that she's terminally ill. Ken, Anna, Edgar and Dr. Muthesius stay with Aurelia until she breathes her last.
A woman falls in love with a man young enough to be her son. She feels as if her body’s rejuvenating but, feeling on top of the world, is confronted with the news that she’s terminally ill.
Thomas Mann’s last novel, The Deceived Woman, is a disturbing study of life and death. Librettist Händel Klaus and composer Vito Žuraj called their opera Blossoming. Seven scenes, which intensify the course of events and focus on the emotional world of the protagonist, called Aurelia. A vocal ensemble, an echo chamber for her »inner self«, accompany Aurelia’s journey.
Brigitte Fassbaender tells this deeply human drama in a direct, yet descreet, and very moving way. This »World Premiere of the Year 2023« (Opernwelt) returns to the Bockenheimer Depot.
