2O18/19 Season
Season book 2O18/19
We are happy to deliver the new 2O18/19 season book to your home free of charge.
You can place your order here.
Welcome to the 2O18/19 season
Dear audience,
Opera houses, as people like to claim, are places of goodness, truth and beauty. But appearances can be deceptive, as the plot of Franz Schreker’s rarely performed opera Die Gezeichneten demonstrates. In this piece, with which we open the 2018/19 season, the deformed Genoese nobleman Alviano Salvago has created a splendid island of artistic beauty. However, secret orgies of erotic excess are celebrated there, and a clique of violent men deflower the innocent daughters of bourgeois families in the catacombs. This supposed Elysium is unmasked as a place of depravity and perversion. Schreker’s large-scale work reveals an aspiration that is always inherent in the operatic art form – beyond the splendid achievements of singers, visually appealing stage sets and moving music. It plumbs the depths of human existence and illuminates the darkest corners in the soul of the individual, as well as the state of mind of entire societies – undeterred by morality or any current debate about political correctness.
Such a quest for the truth can bring to light moments of existential loneliness and alienation, as is apparent in Franz Schubert’s song cycle, Die Winterreise. The choreographic version of this work, which we shall be staging this season, will be a highlight in our ballet programme. However, alienation can also be a ribald and bloody affair, as in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, in which a barber and serial killer executes his throat-slitting craft with consummate professionalism. The numerous corpses that result are turned into scrumptious meat pies. This production of Sweeney Todd (with Bryn Terfel in the title role) is representative of our endeavour to include as many genres as possible in the Opera House’s programme – in this case, a genuine musical in the modern American style. Le Grand Macabre, György Ligeti’s grandiose contemporary opera, leads us down to the final and deepest of all conceivable depths – the end of the world – albeit in the form of a ridiculous farce. The loudmouthed Grim Reaper, who has come to announce the end of the world, gets himself so drunk that he falls asleep and fails to inflict the apocalypse on mankind. And in all probability, death was also simply a braggart.
The subject matter we have chosen for the new productions in the 2018/19 season is rich in contrasts, colourful and ambiguous, and even has thriller quality. Of course, we also have less outlandish works to offer: this season’s opera programme features new interpretations of central works of the repertoire, such as Così fan tutte, Hänsel und Gretel or Nabucco. In its four-part Bella Figura evening, Zurich Ballet will be honouring the great contemporary choreographer Jiří Kylián as well as performing the German choreographer Marco Goecke’s original tribute to the legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. As every season, we have focused on an ambitious combination of carefully selected works, top-class casts and productions that are impeccable in both staging and musical terms. After all, the artistic aspirations that the Opera House represents must be achieved – at every single performance, evening after evening.
We would like to thank the Canton of Zurich, our numerous sponsors, patrons and benefactors, as well as our partners Credit Suisse and UBS for their generous support, and to wish you – from horror musical to cancelled apocalypse – a 2018/19 season filled with exciting ballet and opera productions.
Andreas Homoki, Director
Fabio Luisi, General Music Director
Christian Spuck, Ballet Director
Christian Berner, Commercial Director