Leben mit einem Idioten (Life with an Idiot) Tickets

Zurich Opera House, Zurich, Switzerland

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Available Dates: 29 Nov - 1 Dec, 2024 (2 events)

Important Info

Type: Opera

City: Zurich, Switzerland

Acts: 2

Sung in: German

Titles in: German,English

Ticket delivery: E-Tickets

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

Can I choose my seats?

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Cast

Performers

Choose the date to see the peformers

Creators

Composer: Alfred Schnittke

Director: Kirill Serebrennikov

Librettist: Viktor Erofeyev

Overview

Schnittke’s music, with quotations from Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, the Communist International, a folk song about a birch tree, a tango from the 1930s, and further echoes of Chopin, Mahler, Shostakovich, and others, uses a polystylistic collage technique. All of this will unfold with the Philharmonia Zürich under the direction of Jonathan Stockhammer. Susanne Elmark, Bo Skovhus, as well as the Chor der Oper Zürich – which appears on stage for the duration of the evening – will rise to the enormous challenges the presented by the score.

As punishment for a lack of compassion, the writer «Ich» (or «I») is supposed to take in an idiot at his home. Seems easy enough: «Ich» heads to the psychiatric ward to choose an idiot; he’s quite impressed with himself and his willingness to take in a «holy fool». The idiot seems to fit in well with the life of the writer and his wife. The only thing that doesn't work is speaking, apart from the occasional «Ech!», he doesn’t utter a single word. But when the idiot suddenly and without warning poops on the carpet one day, an uncontrollable spiral of violence, passion and anarchy begins. Alfred Schnittke’s opera Leben mit einem Idioten was premiered in Amsterdam in 1992. Wowa, the idiot in the title, was quickly understood to be a caricature of Lenin, the absurd and grotesque story a bitter parody of everyday life in the Soviet Union. However, the composer has stated that his opera is «by no means solely about communism» but far more about a general state in which «the irrational dominates the rational». And so stage director Kirill Serebrennikov will bring the piece to the stage as the dystopian, contemporary story of a married couple for whom the idiot catalyzes the breakdown of their already toxic relationship – bringing the darkest, most destructive human instincts to the surface, alongside a predisposition to aggression and violence.

History

Premiere of this production: 13 April 1992, Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam

Life with an Idiot is an opera by the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke to a Russian libretto by Viktor Erofeyev. Written as an allegory of oppression under the Soviet Union, the opera was first performed at Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam, on 13 April 1992.

Synopsis

Act 1
As a punishment for not working hard enough, "I" is forced by the authorities to live with an idiot. He chooses Vova from a lunatic asylum. Vova is only capable of speaking a single word: "Ech".

Act 2
At first Vova behaves well but then he suddenly begins to make a nuisance of himself, including tearing up I's wife's copy of the works of Marcel Proust. I and his wife go to live in another room and Vova calms down. I's wife falls in love with Vova and becomes pregnant by him. Then Vova and I turn on the wife. Vova kills her and I becomes an idiot.

Venue Info

Zurich Opera House - Zurich
Sechseläutenplatz 1

Zürich Opera House is a main opera house in Zürich and Switzerland. Located at the Sechseläutenplatz, it has been the home of the Zürich Opera since 1891, and also houses the Bernhard-Theater Zürich. It is also home to the Zürich Ballet. The Opera House also holds concerts by its Philharmonia orchestra, matinees, Lieder evenings and events for children. The Zürich Opera Ball is organised every year in March, and is usually attended by prominent names.

The first permanent theatre, the Aktientheater, was built in 1834 and it became the focus of Richard Wagner’s activities during his period of exile from Germany.

The Aktientheater burnt down in 1890. The new Stadttheater Zürich (municipal theatre) was built by the Viennese architects Fellner & Helmer, who changed their previous design for the theatre in Wiesbaden only slightly. It was opened in 1891. It was the city's main performance space for drama, opera, and musical events until 1925, when it was renamed Opernhaus Zürich and a separate theatre for plays was built: The Bernhard Theater opened in 1941, in May 1981 the Esplanada building was demolished, and the present adjoint building opened on 27/28 December 1984 after three years of transition in the Kaufhaus building nearby Schanzengraben.

By the 1970s, the opera house was badly in need of major renovations; when some considered it not worth restoring, a new theatre was proposed for the site. However, between 1982 and 1984, rebuilding took place but not without huge local opposition which was expressed in street riots. The rebuilt theatre was inaugurated with Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and the world première of Rudolf Kelterborn’s Chekhov opera Der Kirschgarten.

As restored, the theatre is an ornate building with a neo-classical façade of white and grey stone adorned with busts of Weber, Wagner, and Mozart. Additionally, busts of Schiller, Shakespeare, and Goethe are to be found. The auditorium is built in the neo-rococo style and seats approximately 1200 people. During the refurbishment, the issue of sightlines was not adequately addressed. As a result, the theatre has a high number of seats with a limited view, or no view, of the stage. This is unusual in international comparison, where sightlines in historic opera houses have been typically enhanced over time.

Corporate archives and historical library collections are held at the music department of the Predigerkirche Zürich.

The Zürich Opera House is also home of the International Opera Studio (in German: Internationales Opernstudio IOS) which is a educational program for young singers and pianists. The studio was created in 1961 and has renowned artists currently teaching such as Brigitte Fassbaender, Hedwig Fassbender, Andreas Homocki, Rosemary Joshua, Adrian Kelly, Fabio Luisi, Jetske Mijnssen, Ann Murray, Eytan Pessen or Edith Wiens.