 | Georg Friedrich Haas / Jon Fosse (A, N)
Melancholia
Opera in three parts
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It was the love of his life. When it shatters, everything shatters with it. Lars Hertervig, a promising young painter lapses into melancholy and then madness. With this love he also loses his confidence in himself as an artist; in the asylum his thoughts revolve only around himself – and, with him, Jon Fosse’s acclaimed novel, again and again.
In his much-praised novel “Melancholia” set in the nineteenth century, Fosse not only created a monument to Hertevig; in the artist’s obsessive depression (i.e., according to Freud, complete lack of interest in the outside world) he also found a pathological equivalent to the literary device of constantly revolving repetition that is characteristic of all of his writings.
Graz-based composer Georg Friedrich Haas, whose musical style is characterised by filigree acoustic structures, experiments with overtone constellations and microtonal shifts, has condensed the novel which Fosse himself turned into a libretto, into an opera. As such, “Melancholia” ranks among a number of compositions such as the ensemble piece “Nacht-Schatten” (1991) or the Hölderlin chamber opera “Nacht” (1995/96), in which Haas focuses on central themes of the Romantic period from a contemporary standpoint. He transposes the metaphorical fear and transcendental hope that pervades Fosse’s text into a hypnotic musical form, that Haas’s favoured director, Frenchman Stanislas Nordey, translates into disconcerting images.
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Georg Friedrich Haas / Jon Fosse (A, N) 
Produced by Opéra national de Paris & Opera Vest
German-language première co-produced by steirischer herbst & Grazer Oper
Projcet sponsors Asset One, Citroën, Java Cafe, Energie Graz & Steirische Gas - Wärme GmbH
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German-language Première
Fri 24/10 & Sat 25/10, 7.30 pm
90‘
Tue 21/10, 8 pm
Talk with Georg Friedrich Haas
46-3,50€ / 23-1,75€
Oper Graz
Composition Georg Friedrich Haas
Libretto Jon Fosse
Music Klangforum Wien Vokalensemble NOVA
Musical director Emilio Pomarico
Production Stanislas Nordey
Set design Emmanuel Clolus
Costume design Raoul Fernandez
Light design Philippe Berthomé
With
Otto Katzameier, Melanie Walz, Johannes Schmidt, Ruth Weber, Daniel Gloger, Annette Elster & Martyn Hill
German-language Première
Fri 24/10 & Sat 25/10, 7.30 pm
90‘
Tue 21/10, 8 pm
Talk with Georg Friedrich Haas
46-3,50€ / 23-1,75€
Oper GrazComposition Georg Friedrich Haas
Libretto Jon Fosse
Music Klangforum Wien Vokalensemble NOVA
Musical director Emilio Pomarico
Production Stanislas Nordey
Set design Emmanuel Clolus
Costume design Raoul Fernandez
Light design Philippe Berthomé
With
Otto Katzameier, Melanie Walz, Johannes Schmidt, Ruth Weber, Daniel Gloger, Annette Elster & Martyn Hill
