Thomas by Haas, Od (2021/2021), Režie Barbora Horáková, Dirigent Max Renne, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin, Germany

Georg Friedrich Haas' chamber opera begins like many other operas end: Matthias dies in his sickbed. His friend Thomas stays behind, surrounded by doctors, nursing staff and the undertaker. Her busyness cannot hide the fact that Thomas, like every survivor, is thrown back on himself, his feelings, his memories. The end of life is one of the taboos of our secular society. Even far-reaching standardization and bureaucratization in dealing with death have not robbed it of its unimaginable dimension. Georg Friedrich Haas is known as a sensitive and imaginative explorer of the inner world of sounds. Themes like the night, the darkness, the loss of illusions accompany his work. In "Thomas" he describes the powerlessness and speechlessness of the characters in fragile sounds of the ensemble consisting only of percussion and plucked instruments.