Lessons in Love and Violence by Benjamin, Od (2023/2023), Režírované Evgeny Titov,, Dirigent Ilan Volkov, Opernhaus, Zurich, Switzerland

The 62-year-old Englishman George Benjamin is one of the leading contemporary composers and has received worldwide recognition for his two most recent operas, Written on Skin and Lessons in Love and Violence . Benjamin's works for music theater, in which the English author Martin Crimp is his constant partner, stand for a psychologically precise, classic approach to literary-dramatic material, character studies designed with sharp contours and an expressively plastic treatment of the orchestra. At the Zurich Opera House we present Benjamin's most recent opera Lessons in Love and Violence , which premiered in London in 2018, as a Swiss premiere. The subject is about the Shakespearean contemporary Christopher Marlowe and his actingEdward II , which Crimp adapted. At the center of the dark drama is the power-weary King Edward, who neglects the affairs of state and his people in favor of a perverted love of art and a homoerotic relationship with his favorite Gaveston. The military commander Mortimer, who is ambitious for the crown and who is the lover of Edward's wife Queen Isabella, becomes his enemy and has Gaveston executed and the king cruelly killed. The spiral of violence eventually spreads to the next generation, Isabella and Edward's children, who have learned their lessons in love and violence. Lessons in Love and Violenceis a story about the amorality of those in power, about cold lust for power and the heat of desire and the private sphere as the true battlefield of political atrocities. In addition to the composer, the production brings other new artists to the Zurich Opera House: the fiery Russian drama and opera director Evgeny Titov, who has caused a sensation from the Salzburg Festival to the Komische Oper Berlin in recent years, makes his debut. Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov, an expert on contemporary scores, is at the rostrum, and highly regarded Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique is also making her debut as Isabel at the Zurich Opera House.