Liberty

Premiere on 30. April 2027

Composer Diana Syrse. Libretto von Sofi Oksanen. Übertragung vom Finnischen ins Englische von Owen F. Witesman.

Opera in two acts (2027)

recommended for ages 16 and up

In English. With surtitles in German. New Production.

Premiere of the Opernstudio

Commissioned work by the Bayerische Staatsoper

>>> to the introductory soirée

The Opernstudio of the Bayerischen Staatsoper is supported by: Dr. Arnold und Emma Bahlmann, DIBAG Industriebau AG, Rolf (†) und Caroli Dienst, Vera und Volker Doppelfeld-Stiftung, Dr. Dierk und Veronika Ernst, Monika und Karl Ertl, Christa Fassbender, Dr. Joachim Feldges, Dietlinde und Carl-Peter Forster, Freunde des Nationaltheaters e. V., Sabine + Werner Geissler, GOTTSCHALL-STIFTUNG, Regina Hesselberger, Stefan und Maria Holzhey, Dirk und Marlene Ippen, Christine und Marco Janezic, Dr. Hans-Dieter Koch und Silvie Katalin Koch-Varga, Christof Lamberts, Christiane Link, The Opera Foundation, A+O Rogowski, Schwarz Foundation, Dr. Martin Steinmeyer, Angela und Dominik Stühler, Dr. Angelika und Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter H. Vogel, Oliver und Kaori Zipse.

As part of the Ja, Mai festival for early and contemporary musical theatre, hailing the motto “Resistance”, the Bayerische Staatsoper commissioned two artistes with a world premiere. In her sound language the Mexican theatre expert, composer Diana Syrse, often combines singing and electronics. Syrse has already been accoladed with the City of Munich Music Prize and the Counterpoint of Tolerance Project of Los Angeles. The libretto is by Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen, celebrated for her novel Fegefeuer and the libretto for Kaija Saariaho’s opera, Innocence. Both will now work together for the first time. Their Liberty opera hones in on domestic violence, its repression and confronting it. The scenes span a period of four decades, in which the stressful circumstances in a family are experienced from the child’s point of view, and interpreted in retrospect by the main adult character. While mother, daughter, brother and uncle are embodied by singers, the choir provides the voices for the father and society. Questions about self-empowerment as a possible form of resistance, which means are legitimate in such a family situation, and whether a feeling of the freedom referred to in the title can be achieved at all, are still ambivalent at the end. A utopian-hopeful conclusion nevertheless appears possible.

Elsa-Sophie Jach has been Resident Director at the Residenztheater München since the 2022/23 season, while engagements have taken her to the Thalia Theater Hamburg, the Schauspielhaus Wien and the Luzerner Theater. In theatre she has in particular distinguished herself with adaptations of classical texts from feminist perspectives. In her Munich staging of Romeo and Juliet she thus also gave a voice to Shakespeare’s contemporaries who are largely unknown today. In her Orestie staging at the Theater Münster she juxtaposed the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus with modern female writers, or interwove Heinrich von Kleist’s Käthchen von Heilbronn with passages from Christa Wolf’s work. She will now stage a production at the Bayerische Staatsoper for the ninth time. Together with the Opera Studio, in Liberty she gets to grips with resistance to patriarchal structures, with a direction team filled with trusted companions: Aleksandra Pavlović has already created the stage for her productions, Lapidarium, Eine Zierde für den Verein, Die Fliegen and Werther at the Residenztheater München. And Belle Santos was responsible for the costumes for Elsa-Sophie Jach’s stagings of Antigone and the WÜST world premiere at the Theater Bremen, and more recently with Automatenbüfett at the Residenztheater. As a trio, with Diana Syrse’s new opera, Liberty, the theatre creators are now developing a staging together for the first time as part of the Ja, Mai festival.