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Lash

Rebecca Saunders [*1967]

11
Friday
July
19:30 - 21:30
B prices: € 92.00 / 72.00 / 52.00 / 32.00 / 24.00
Buy tickets
Information about the work

Acts of Love
Opera in three acts by Rebecca Saunders
on a libretto by Ed Atkins and Rebecca Saunders
World premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 20 June 2025

1 hour 30 minutes / No interval

In English with German and English surtitles

Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance

recommended from 16 years
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Our thanks to our partners

Commissioned by Deutsche Oper Berlin with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung. Presented by taz.

11
Friday
July
19:30 - 21:30
B prices: € 92.00 / 72.00 / 52.00 / 32.00 / 24.00
Buy tickets
Cast
the content

About the work
A woman finds herself on the verge of death when a seemingly endless cascade of questions comes pouring out of her, all directed toward a beloved, coveted and absent Other. With these are memories of a life well lived, of the longing for love and sex, of the faltering of her yearning and the tragedy of death behind it. The woman breaks down into four different facets of her own personality, each depicted by a different performer, representing the various perspectives and viewpoints of one individual. What forms is a web of interconnections between seeing and being seen, touching and being touched, feeling and being felt, understanding and being understood. It is a sensual play about sex, the body, love and death – with a surprising ending. LASH is the first opera by celebrated German-British composer Rebecca Saunders. With it, she is creating a work about the base, existential experiences of the human body that we spend our lives in and with which we experience and comprehend the world around us. The work is based on the strikingly pictorial texts of video artist and writer Ed Atkins.

About the production
LASH will be staged by the Irish directing collective Dead Centre with the two directors Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel, the set and costume designer Nina Wetzel and the video artist Sebastian Dupouey. Dead Centre already staged the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli's IL TEOREMA DI PASSOLINI here in 2023. With LASH, they are now going one step further towards an opera aesthetic that moves in a field of tension between concrete narration and the creation of rather abstract spaces of perception and experience and the worlds of hearing, seeing and feeling created therein. LASH will therefore feature large-format dream images on the verge of abstraction as well as concrete snapshots of the protagonist's life, which has disintegrated into fragments. There will be a microscopic view of the smallest body details such as eyelashes, skin flakes or hair, enlarged to stage-filling format, but also a gradually piecing together puzzle of a life with its desires and the question of the extent to which these have been fulfilled, with concrete encounters, hopes and disappointments.

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05
DEC

Adventskalender in der Tischlerei: Das 5. Fensterchen

Today in the Tischlerei: ‘Rossini, Liszt and more’
with Kangyoon Shine Lee (tenor) and Songyeon Catarina Kim (piano)
5pm / Tischlerei
Duration: approx. 25 minutes / free admission


The evening begins with musical declarations of love: love is illuminated in all its facets – from the idealised, the yearning to the devoted and the melancholy – in three songs by Franz Liszt and an aria from Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. Franz Liszt's ‘Enfant, si j'etais roi’ (‘Child, if I were king’) and ‘Oh! Quand je dors’ (‘Oh! When I sleep’) are settings of poems by Victor Hugo. In the first, the beloved is given everything imaginable – but it can never be enough. The second poem describes a nocturnal vision of the beloved, who appears like an angel, kisses the sleeping person and fills them with heavenly love. Liszt's ‘Liebestraum Nr. 3’ (‘Oh dear, as long as you can love’) is one of a series of three songs that Liszt later arranged in a purely instrumental form and which became emblematic of romantic piano music. The original text was written by Ferdinand Freiligrath and deals with the transience of love and the resulting need to cherish and cultivate it in the here and now. You will hear the Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim at the piano. She then lovingly accompanies our ensemble member Kangyoon Shine Lee in an aria that he will sing again on our main stage from 31 March 2025, when he takes on the role of Count Almaviva in Katharina Thalbach's production of Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA: the cavatina ‘Ecco, ridente in cielo’. In it, Almaviva sings about the beauty of the morning and his ardent love for Rosina – it is a lyrical and romantic beginning to an otherwise predominantly comedic opera. It is followed by the song ‘La danza’ from Rossini's collection of songs ‘Les soirées musicales’, published about 20 years later, which describes the joyful hustle and bustle of a Neapolitan festival. The musical basis for this song is the tarantella, a fast, rhythmic folk dance from southern Italy. The programme will conclude with a contemplative Christmas favourite, ‘O Holy Night’.

Lyric tenor Kangyoon Shine Lee was born in Seoul. He first graduated from the Korea National University of Arts before studying with Kammersänger Prof. Roman Trekel at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin from 2022. In 2021, Kangyoon Shine Lee won the Belvedere Competition and received an engagement at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He made his house debut on 27 December 2022 as Almaviva in Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA and also sang in DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE. In the 2024/25 season, he will be part of the ensemble here at the theatre and can be heard in roles such as Tamino in Mozart's MAGIC FLUTE and the children's version THE FAIRY TALE OF THE MAGIC FLUTE, as Count von Lerma / DON CARLO, Cavalier Belfiore / IL VIAGGIO A REIMS, Malcolm / MACBETH, Walther von der Vogelweide / TANNHÄUSER and Pang / TURANDOT.

The South Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim studied piano at Kyunghee University in Seoul. She has won numerous Korean and international competitions. Since 2021, she has been studying Lied interpretation with Prof. Wolfram Rieger at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. She is currently studying chamber music with Prof. Wolfram Rieger as part of her concert exam. During her studies, she was a répétiteur in lessons with KS Prof. Roman Trekel, Prof. Anna Korondi, KS Prof. Ewa Wolak, Prof. Martin Bruns and Prof. Christine Schäfer, as well as a répétiteur in masterclasses with KS Brigitte Fassbaender and KS Prof. Thomas Quasthoff. She has also worked as a répétiteur for scenic instruction at the Immling Festival, the Darmstadt Theatre and the Erfurt Theatre. In the 2024/25 season, she will work as a répétiteur at IMMMERMEEEHR at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.