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World Premiere of Peter Eötvös's Sleepless at Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Nov. 01, 2021

Staatsoper Unter den Linden presents the world premiere of Peter Eötvös's Sleepless on November 28 in a production by film, opera, and theater director, Kornél Mundruczó, who makes his Staatsoper Unter den Linden debut with these performances. All performances, running from November 28 through December 16, will be conducted by the composer. 

Sleepless is set in Bergen, Norway where it is cold and raining. Asle and the heavily pregnant Alida wander around the coastal city. The young couple are turned away wherever they go. The likes of them are not welcome here. Each pause masks a further drift into a surreal psychological haze. Driven by desperation, they break into a stranger’s house. A series of mysterious encounters in which the past comes to life proves to be a disastrous race against time.

Peter Eötvös composed this work adapting a short story of the same title by the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse. In this work, he and the librettist Mari Mezei interweave snapshots of the existential search for belonging, crime as a response to human indifference and the struggle with a sense of being out of place, generating a kind of suggestive, operatic stream of consciousness.

Listen to an excerpt from Peter Eötvös's opera Senza Sangue (2016): 
(Peter Eötvös/Senza Sangue:Invocation/Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra/Peter Eötvös, conductor)


To learn more about Peter Eötvös, visit: schott-music.com.

Peter Eötvös
Sleepless (2018-2021)
Opera Ballad
based on "Trilogy" by Jon Fosse
Libretto by Mari Mezei
English translation by Judith Sollosy
95'

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