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An Operatic Psycho Thriller: Miroslav Srnka’s Voice Killer Premieres at MusikTheater an der Wien

Jun. 30, 2025

Miroslav Srnka has chosen an infamous criminal case as the theme for his sixth opera, Voice Killer: the story of a serial murderer who killed three women in 1942 in Australia in order to capture their voices. The American soldier wanted to bring back to life the voice of his mother which allowed him to forget his demons when he heard her singing lullabies in his childhood. On June 13, the work, set to a libretto by Tom Holloway, received its premiere at the MusikTheater an der Wien.

“The before and after the murder is the most fascinating”, says Miroslav Srnka, who has to a certain extent composed his opera from the perspective of the perpetrator, without justifying or excusing his deeds. It is not the external events which he has set to music, but the internal, the intellectual and above all the emotional world of the soldier and his victims. Srnka places the phrase “Who breathes cannot sing, who sings cannot breathe” as a motto at the beginning of his score, a reference to an essential experience of singing and to the connection between the singing victims and their fatal strangulation.

In their opera psychodrama, Srnka and Holloway sketch the blending of levels of reality and dream, of trauma and wish fulfilment; the score achieves this through its own concept of time. At the moment in which the crime, arrest, judgement and execution coincide, all the narrators and time levels of the opera come together. A top-class cast conducted by Finnegan Downie Dear and the Klangforum Wien performed the multi-layered score in a production by Cordula Däuper.

Read more about Voice Killer in [t]aktehere.


Trailer: Miroslav Srnka's Voice Killer at MusikTheater an der Wien

Miroslav Srnka
Voice Killer
An Opera Based on a True Story
Libretto by Tom Holloway
Pauline/Military Cop (stratospheric soprano), lvy/McGuffie (high soprano), Gladys (soprano),
Private (baritone and falsetto), Gallo (tenor), Provost/Pappa (baritone), Mamma (speaking role),
Chorus (min. 24 voices)

2(1.pic; 1,2.bfl).0.2(bcl).0-2.2.2.0-2perc-2cc-pno-str(4.0.2.2.2)-further percussion instruments divided through the orchestra
100'

Publisher: Bärenreiter, BA11724-72, performance material available on hire

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