The origin of the internationally acclaimed opera by the Berlin composer Aribert Reimann goes back to August Strindberg’s drama of 1907. Placed between black reality and expressive surrealism, it is considered the most fantastic of his dramas.

The play tells the fabled story of Arkenholz, a student, who, by a vampire-like old woman, is entangled into the dark destinies of the inhabitants of a mysterious house. There, Arkenholz, a sunday’s child with the gift of seeing through things, witnesses a ghost supper with adulterers, thieves, murderers, crazies and deceased people who cannot find peace and are wandering in a ghastly state of suspense between life and death.

All these people are burdened with their own guilt as well as the jealousy of the others. Their life was marked by envy, hate, intrigue and a horrific battle of the sexes. Yet, as many times as they tried to extricate themselves, they continued to be drawn together by their crimes and secrets. Thus they live together silently in a gloomy cheerless world, from which even the young daughter of old man Hummel cannot escape. His plan to free her from the ghost house with the help of Arkenholz must fail. For she, too, who is shutting herself into the hyacinth room to avoid life, has long since succumbed to the poison of her fellow creatures…

"Life is a punishment! A hell, for some a purgatory, for nobody a paradise."
August Strindberg

Christian Baumgärtel (student) and Malin Byström (the young lady)
Photo: Tanja Hertling

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