On June 20, Rebecca Saunders’ first opera Lash – Acts of Love celebrates its debut at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Based on an original text by Ed Atkins, the libretto was co-written by Saunders and Atkins. The creative team, under musical direction by Enno Poppe, consists of Dead Centre, an Irish theatre collective, Nina Wetzel, costumes and Sébastien Dupouey, video.
On stage, singers Anna Prohaska, Sarah Maria Sun, Noa Frenkel and actress Katja Kolm are joined by the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and three soloist playing electric guitar and two synthesizers.
Lash is a three act opera about a woman processing the aftereffects of a death. She tells the audience about her memories and fantasies of love and loss, sex, illness, kisses, eyeballs, genitals, fingertips, lips, and lashes all with the aim to find comfort and to stop the meaninglessness of death. This woman is portrayed on stage by four singers that all represent different sides and facets to the character. Spoken and sung by different people, those facets are all expressed with unique character as Saunders explained in an interview with “field notes”. The opera also questions the perception and self-perception of one’s own body: as a body that is exhibited on stage, but also, adopting a micro-perspective and viewing minute physical details such as hairs, eyebrows, eyelashes, eyeballs or patches of skin, focusing on those parts of the body with which we exist in the world, but also use to feel, touch, see, smell and hear the world. Thus, a deeply sensual interplay embracing sex, body, love, and death unfolds – with a surprising ending.
Lash is commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin and supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
For more information see Deutsche Oper Berlin.
