Rote Laterne

The opera Rote Laterne is the completion of a trilogy also containing my operas Die arabische Nacht and Rumor. Each opera focuses on a different young modern woman caught in an abysmal, surreal erotic situation. Franziska in Die arabische Nacht experiences daily dreams of such intensity that all flatmates and neighbours in the residential block are caught up in a vortex of eroticism. Adela, the undead figure in Rumor, possessing angelic innocence in the eyes of the village, enjoys life each dawn in excessive eroticism until this brings her to her apparent death.

And now Song-Lian in Rote Laterne! She arrives at the estate of Master Chen as the fourth, most beautiful and youngest of the concubines. But Song-Lian has more ambitious aims than merely succumbing with pleasure to the finely spun web of intrigue and passion. The year she spends with Master Chen adheres to the logic of a nightmare in which the seasons alter as they please and lust and jealousy dictate the hours of the day. The entire plot of my opera is steered by Song-Lian’s view of things. As if in a dream, she abandons herself to her fate, recognising that the secret keeping her in this world lies at the bottom of a well. Christian Jost