February 18, 2023 will see the long-waited world premiere of Danish composer Søren Nils Eichberg’s new opera Oryx and Crake based on the novel by the great Canadian author, Margaret Atwood. Hannah Dübgen has written the libretto based on Atwood’s captivating and dystopian tale for Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden.
Margaret Atwood's story of the only human survivor on Earth is told through flashbacks, through which the audience must deduce what drama lead to the apocalypse. This operatic adaptation combines intelligent, dark humor with melancholic, dystopian loneliness. Its futuristic yet archaic intensity underpins a passionate love triangle.
Søren Eichberg comments:
When first reading it, I immediately fell in love with the novel "Oryx and Crake" (and its protagonist). Atwood’s writing may well be the most intelligent, colourful and psychologically aware writing you can find in literature today — and arguably unrivalled in its blossoming fantasy and piercingly social relevance. The characters and scenery immediately touched me and to me everything yearned for music. And so I am over-joyed to have been given the opportunity to bring it to life on the opera stage.
Oryx and Crake is Eichberg's fifth opera and the collaboration between Søren Eichberg and librettist Hannah Dübgen goes back to the premiere of Eichberg’s chamber opera Glare (2014) at the Royal Opera Covent Garden in London which opened to great reviews.
Currently based in Berlin, Eichberg has written numerous solo, chamber and orchestral works and his symphonies were short-listed for the German National Composers Prize. Furthermore, Eichberg was named as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra’s first ever composer in residence and a collaboration with Hilary Hahn for Deutsche Grammophon won a Grammy Award.
Performance Details
February 18 - April 21, 2023
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Director: Daniela Kerck,
Dramaturgy: Constantin Mende
Conductor: Albert Horne
