The Circle

A young woman is hired by a large internet company and forges a meteoric career. She is enthusiastic about the philosophy of sharing: ‘Secrets are lies, private spheres are theft’. She only gradually discovers that the ‘Circle’ is a realm from which it is difficult to escape.

Ludger Vollmer’s new opera is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Dave Eggers. ‘In The Circle, we see a process continued to extremes, which we have already been able to observe throughout society: a digital development towards consumer-oriented totalitarianism. While Immanuel Kant in 1874 ascribed enlightenment as the ability “to exert one’s own intellect without the supervision of another individual” and Michel Foucault was still demanding “freedom from subjection”, “voluntary non-servitude” and “reflective disobediance” in 1978, the yearning for coherence through the protective mass according to the large, nurturing, omniscient and protective “uterus” of the collective appears to be steadily gaining ever more ground.’ (Ludger Vollmer)