Thomas

CHAMBER OPERA (2013)

Music by Georg Friedrich Haas
TEXT BY Händl Klaus

Georg Friedrich Haas’s chamber opera begins the way many operas end: Matthias has died in his hospital bed. His friend Thomas, surrounded by doctors, nurses and the undertaker, remains behind. Their bustling activity cannot belie the fact that Thomas, like every bereaved person, is now thrown back on himself, his feelings and memories.

In today’s secular society, the end of life is one of the few remaining taboos. Even wide-ranging standardisation and bureaucratisation in handling death have not lessened its inconceivability. Georg Friedrich Haas has a reputation as a sensitive and imaginative explorer of the inner world of sounds. Subjects like the night, darkness and disillusionment pervade his work. In »Thomas«, for example, he depicts the powerlessness and speechlessness of the characters in fragile sounds with an ensemble consisting only of percussion and plucked instruments.

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