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Written on Skin

George Benjamin [*1960]

04
Sunday
May
17:00 - 18:30
B prices: € 92.00 / 72.00 / 52.00 / 32.00 / 24.00
Buy tickets
Information about the work

Opera in three parts
Text by Martin Crimp after the anonymous Occitan text "Guillem de Cabestanh - Le cœur mangé" from the 13th century.
Premiere on 7 July 2012 at the Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix-en-Provence
Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 27 January 2024

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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Dates & Tickets
04
Sunday
May
17:00 - 18:30
B prices: € 92.00 / 72.00 / 52.00 / 32.00 / 24.00
Buy tickets
Cast
the content

About the work
Three angels look back to a period in the past when books were precious artefacts with texts written on skin. One of the angels acts out the role of an olden-day illustrator who has been commissioned by the rich and powerful Protector to create a beautifully illuminated manuscript setting out the Protector’s biography. In his patron’s home the angel encounters Agnès, the Protector’s younger wife, who is still a virgin on account of her husband’s self-imposed abstinence. Despite this, he is jealous and keeps a close eye on her – to no avail, because Agnès begins an affair with the angel in his incarnation as an artist. The Protector learns of their relationship and kills the illustrator. Then he serves his unwitting wife the heart of her lover as part of a meal.

For the composer of WRITTEN ON SKIN, George Benjamin, English author Martin Crimp adapted one of the best-known stories from the France of the High Middle Ages. “Le cœur mangé”, the tale of a woman eating the heart of her lover, can be traced to a 12-century Occitan text reputedly written by a troubadour named Guillem de Cabestanh, although some sources suggest he came to the same gruesome end. Crimp’s text charting the gory ménage à trois is also a rumination on the power of art. Agnès is in awe of the illustrator’s talent for chronicling real events by means of images and even creating entire worlds from scratch. Yet it is the pictures, coupled with a declaration of love to Agnès in text form, that alert the Protector to his affair with his wife.


About the production
The world premiere of WRITTEN ON SKIN took place at the 2012 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and was rapturously received. The work is a rare example of perfect text-composition symbiosis. A gripping story and precise, poetic language go hand-in-hand with an acutely theatrical score which, albeit thoroughly contemporary, also has the kind of full-bodied tonality that can rivet a broad range of audiences. Katie Mitchell’s visually powerful and psychologically accurate production has toured widely on the international circuit and now comes to Berlin for the first time.

Our articles on the subject

A momentous affair
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George Benjamin – My place of serenity: A garden in London
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22
DEC

Advents-Verlosung: Das 22. Fensterchen

On 7 March 2025, the first part of Tobias Kratzer's Strauss trilogy, ARABELLA, celebrates its revival as part of our ‘Richard Strauss in March’ weeks, with Jennifer Davis as Arabella , Heidi Stober as Zdenka/Zdenko, Thomas Johannes Mayer as Mandryka, Daniel O'Hearn as Matteo and, as in the premiere series, Doris Soffel and Albert Pesendorfer as the Waldner couple. Today we are giving away our DVD, which will not be available in shops until 14 February 2025. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to NAXOS for giving us the very special opportunity to put ARABELLA in our lottery pot for you almost eight weeks before the official sales launch.

In today's Advent Calendar window, we are giving away two DVDs of ARABELLA – a lyrical comedy in three acts by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. If you would like to win one of the two DVDs, please write an e-mail with the subject ‘The 22nd window’ to advent@deutscheoperberlin.de.

Vienna, circa 1860. The financially strapped Count Waldner is lodging with his family in a Viennese hotel. His only path to solvency is for him to secure an advantageous marriage for one of his two daughters – and the family can only afford to present Arabella, the eldest, in the upper circles of society. To conceal the family’s indigence, the parents have raised Zdenka as a boy, dressing her accordingly. Arabella is not short of suitors but has resolved to wait for ‘Mr Right’. When Mandryka, an aristocrat from a distant region, arrives, he and Arabella are instantly smitten. Arabella only asks to be able to bid farewell to her friends and suitors at the Fasching ball that evening. At the ball, Arabella says goodbye to her admirers. There is also the young officer Matteo, with whom Zdenka is secretly in love and with whom she has formed a friendship under the guise of her disguise as a boy. Matteo, however, desires Arabella and is distraught when he realises the hopelessness of his love. Zdenka devises a plan: she fakes a letter from Arabella in which she promises Matteo a night of love together. But instead she wants to wait for him herself in the darkness of the hotel room. Mandryka learns of Arabella's alleged infidelity and goes to the hotel with the ball guests to surprise Arabella in flagrante delicto. Arabella, innocent of this, is initially shocked and saddened by Mandryka’s suspicions but forgives him when the mix-up is revealed for what it is. The two agree to marry, as do Zdenka and Matteo.

Richard Strauss’s orchestral richness and opulence coupled with the period Viennese setting of the work led to ARABELLA being falsely pigeonholed as a light-hearted comedy of errors from its 1933 premiere onwards. In the estimation of Tobias Kratzer, however, who triumphed at the Deutsche Oper with his production of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s THE DWARF, this final collaboration between Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal marks a collision of two world views: the traditional roles of men and women on the one hand – as expressed in Arabella’s famous solo “Und du sollst mein Gebieter sein” – and a modern idea of social interaction on the other – as illustrated by Zdenka with her questioning of gender-based identities. Here, Kratzer turns the spotlight on this disunity between the various character portrayals in ARABELLA and explores these role-specific tensions on a continuum stretching from 19th-century Vienna to the present day. In the category of stage design, Manuel Braun, Jonas Dahl and Rainer Sellmaier were honoured with the renowned German Theatre Award DER FAUST 2023 for this production.

In this recording, under the baton of Sir Donald Runnicles, you will experience Albert Pesendorfer, Doris Soffel, Sara Jakubiak, Elena Tsallagova, Russell Braun, Robert Watson, Thomas Blondelle, Kyle Miller, Tyler Zimmerman, Hye-Young Moon, Lexi Hutton, Jörg Schörner and others, as well as the chorus and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The performances on 18 and 23 March 2023 were recorded by rbb Kultur and Naxos for this DVD.

We would like to thank the Naxos label for the great collaboration over the past few years, which documents recordings of DER ZWERG, DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE, FRANCESCA DA RIMINI, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, DER SCHATZGRÄBER, DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG and ANTIKRIST. Richard Strauss' ARABELLA and INTERMEZZO will be released in the course of 2025.


Closing date: 22 December 2024. The winners will be informed by email on 23 December 2024. The DVDs will then be sent by post. There is no right of appeal.