Der Traum von Dir.
Contemporary chamber opera by Xavier Dayer.
World premiere, Zurich Opera 2017/2018
Musical director Michael Richter
Stage director Nina Russi
Set design Barbara Pfyffer
Costume design Jeannette Seiler
Lighting design Dino Strucken
Dramaturgy Kathrin Brunner
The Unknown I Soyoung Lee
The Unknown II Hamida Kristoffersen
The Unknown III Kismara Pessatti
The writer Cody Quattlebaum
Ensemble Opera Nova
Photos © T+T Fotografie / Tanja Dorendorf
Video recording available on request
The Chamber Opera Der Traum von Dir (The Dream of You) tells the story of an obsessive, unfulfilled love affair between a young woman and a writer. She unfolds a play with levels of reality in which the few real encounters of the couple are interlaced with manipulative figments of reality, longing visions, the happy intoxication of love and desolate loneliness. The Swiss composer Xavier Dayer has split the nameless, female protagonist, the “unknown woman”, into a threefold ego and in nine scenes traces the frenetic states of an ecstatic love that may have taken place only in the head of the protagonist. Intimately cast for three female voices, a baritone and six instruments, a musical theatre emerged that reflects on identity and identity constructions and explores the emotional tension of a (non-) relationship in an anti-tragic way.
Press reviews
«The director Nina Russi suggests mimic-gesticulatory the possibility of a morbidly lost psyche for the unknown. Before long the trio will sit tightly next to each other on the winding park bench, soon the area will be used for expansive movements together with the public tribune aisles. It remains unclear whether it is about real events in the life of a stalker or is all "just" a figment of the imagination.»
Der Südkurier, Torbjörn Bergflödt
«And the staging emphasizes it: (... The team) sets a white bench like a roller coaster of bubbling emotions in a kind of endless loop on the studio stage, in which the three unknowns and the writer have to find their way in various encounters and hallucinated dreams and desires. That is the strength of the evening: that it really leaves open at all levels what has to remain open.»
Der Tages-Anzeiger, Susanne Kübler
«(The set design ...) is waiting bench and endless loop in one and corresponds so obviously to the focus of the piece. The director Nina Russi uses the scenery and leads the three women in an extensive language of movement as remotely controlled by this stage construction, from which there is no escape.»
Roccosound, Herbert Büttiker
«A white bench like a roller coaster of surging emotions in a kind of endless loop on the studio stage, in which the three unknowns and the writer must find their way in changing encounters and flitting will-o'-the-wisp dreams and yearnings. (The performers ...) know that Zurich can be used as a springboard for a promising career, which also applies to Nina Russi, who is responsible for convincing productions over and over again.»
Seniorweb, Joseph Auchter
