We are pleased to share that Ella Milch-Sheriff’s opera Alma received the Austrian Music Theatre Prize for Best first/premiere performance at Volksoper Vienna in 2024. Conducted by Omer Meir Wellber and with stage direction by Ruth Brauer-Kvam, the opera, with a libretto by Ido Ricklin, is inspired by Alma Mahler’s biography but gives it a free interpretation.
In five acts Alma tells us about her role as a mother and her children, who she tragically lost one after the other. Commencing with the death of her daughter Manon Gropius in 1935, we then follow Alma Mahler to the past – to 1919, when she lost her son Martin Gropius at less than a year old, to 1912 when she aborted Oscar Kokoschka’s child, to 1902 when young Maria Mahler dies of Diphtheria and finally to 1901 when she met Gustav Mahler and buries her compositions, her spiritual children.
The only child to have survived childhood is Anna Mahler, her second child with Gustav Mahler. As the second protagonist of this opera, she enters into a dialogue with Alma and helps to understand the complex psyche of her mother.
Congratulations!
