Red Lantern
The opera Red Lantern tells the story of a young woman who, as the fourth and youngest wife, is married into a traditional Chinese family and perishes there due to the backward circumstances. Four wives from different generations and their husband Master Chen live under one roof and form a hopelessly catastrophic relationship pentagon. The play is about female desire and social coercion, dream visions, emotional self-determination, lust for power, resentment, jealousy and death. The literary basis for the opera comes from the Chinese writer Su Tong and became world famous when the film director Zhang Yimou adapted it in 1991 for his award-winning cinema classic Red Lantern .
The work was composed by the German Christian Jost, who is one of the most sought-after composers of our time. Jost, who lives in Berlin, has already written seven works for music theater, including for the Komische Oper in Berlin and the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp. In 2009, his opera Hamlet was voted "World Premiere of the Year" by critics. Jost, who approaches a Far Eastern subject with the musical means of a Western composer, is interested in the somnambulist atmosphere, the menacingly fluctuating dream logic and the fragile, mysterious characters that the material for Red Lantern develops.
Internationally renowned singers such as the soprano Claudia Boyle and the baritone Rod Gilfry, who are highly competent in dealing with modern music, play central roles. The Frenchman Alain Altinoglu, who made his highly acclaimed debut at the Zurich Opera House in The Flying Dutchman in the 2012/13 season, will conduct. It is staged by the young German director Nadja Loschky.
