Jacob's Room: Monodrama

Morton Subotnick’s chamber opera Jacob’s Room is set in the mind of a young man struggling with the loss of family in various worldwide calamities. Jacob tries to forget by turning inward, losing track of everything and everyone around him. He reads, studies and tries to absorb Platonic thought. A woman (the conscience of humanity) appears and forces him to confront his past, the horror and the pain of his loss and his feelings of guilt for having survived. Subotnick draws from multiple literary sources to create a contemporary parable, explicitly leaving out references to a specific time or location. Jacob’s Room is commissioned by Kunst aus der Zeit, Bregenzer Festspiele, and soniq performing arts, Berlin in cooperation with the American Academy, Berlin and supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Berlin.