Il ritorno / The Year of Magical Thinking

Christopher Rüping, among the most promising young theater directors in the German-speaking world, is directing Il ritorno / The Year of Magical Thinking, his first opera - a work by Claudio Monteverdi using a text by Joan Didion. From 2015 to 2019 he was house director at the Kammerspiele in Munich, and since the 2019/20 season he has held this position at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. In total, he received four invitations to the Berlin Theatertreffen and was twice named Theater Heute's Young Director of the Year. Set designer Jonathan Mertz and costume designer Lene Schwind have been long and lasting companions on this path of Rüping. Malte Ubenauf and Rüping have also worked together in the theater. At the Bayerische Staatsoper, Ubenauf most recently designed the production of Giuditta by Franz Lehár together with director Christoph Marthaler in the 2021/22 season. Conductor Christopher Moulds has a special connection to Monteverdi's work and to the Bayerische Staatsoper: on the occasion of the new production of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria in 2001 at the Bayerische Staatsoper, he was Ivor Bolton's musical assistant, conducted the repertory performances in the years to come, and is very familiar with the historically informed version specially made for Munich.

Letting go or holding on? When a loved one dies, questions and feelings arise that revolve around whether and how we should or can let go of the loved one at all. Il ritorno / The Year of Magical Thinking takes Claudio Monteverdi's dramma in musica Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, referring to the story of Penelope and Ulisse from Homer's Odyssey poem, as a starting point for addressing the antagonistic feelings when a person is confronted with a loss. Interwoven with the story of Penelope's wait for Ulisse's return is the autobiographical work The Year of Magical Thinking by U.S. writer Joan Didion, who died last year. In her nonfiction book, a written record of grief, published in 2005, Didion struggles with the sudden death of her husband, how she dealt with it, and how to move on.