ZELLE: Wenn es dunkel wird

Fredrik Tjærandsens makes costumes and inflatables for the chamber opera Zelle. 

It is winter. A woman is found alone in a small hut high up in the mountains. She is suspected of having killed her children. The interrogator questions the woman and in doing so, receives no answers, leading her instead to reflect on her own state of mind. As time passes, the fog thickens and clarity dissipates as it becomes harder and harder to find what was never lost.

A mind in a body in a room in a story in a mind in a body in the world. One by one, the layers fall away in a ritual of unravelling and we are immersed in darkness, in light, in sky, as we follow the transformative power of letting go of the need for answers to our questions.

For the new chamber opera ZELLE: Wenn es dunkel wird the British-Chinese composer and director Jamie Man 文珮玲 joins forces with the Swiss writer and librettist Peter Stamm. What binds them is the quest for what is real, for the truth beneath the reality. With influences including the dark surrealism of David Lynch, the narrative montage techniques of Jean-Luc Godard and Japanese Nō theatre, ZELLE: Wenn es dunkel wird explores the boundaries of what is visible, audible and knowable.