Thomas

In our secular society, the end of life is one of the remaining taboos. Even extensive standardisation and bureaucratisation in the ways in which we deal death have not lessened its unimaginable dimensions. Georg Friedrich Haas has a reputation as a sensitive and imaginative explorer of the inner world of sounds. Subjects like the night, darkness and disillusionment pervade his work. In »Thomas«, for example, he depicts the powerlessness and speechlessness of his characters in fragile sounds with an ensemble consisting only of percussion and plucked instruments. Haas, who has repeatedly devoted himself to opera in recent years, has a long-standing collaboration with Händl Klaus, one of the most pioneering playwrights and opera librettists of the present day. The director Barbora Horáková Joly will make her debut at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden with this chamber opera which premiered at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival in 2013.