Grandiose reserve. Music as if spoken with a closed mouth. During 70 fascinating minutes the highly meritorious Zeitgenössische Oper Berlin, in cooperation with the Berlin Music Festival, is showing "The deadly flower" by Salvatore Sciarrino in the Hebbel-Theater. An opera like no other. And as no other of the three opera houses in Berlin this production succeeds as a result of the artistic team work. It is perfected in every minute detail. One learns again to be totally astounded.

Sciarrino makes his instruments whisper. His opera sounds as if it is rising from under the bed covers, where love and murder happen softly, faintly.

Sciarrino’s work again and again seems to suffocate itself. As in a silent agreement it absorbs all the tortures of the soul as if in a fainting fit. Precisely therein lies its power. One has to listen extremely carefully to discover its intentions.

The countess Malaspina commits adultery. She is being observed by a servant. He reports it to the count who draws his bloody consequences. In Sabrina Hölzer’s suggestive production the protagonists are confronted with each other like spies, watchful, reserved. They sing to each other. Lonely phrases. They rise in the cage of passion like hummingbirds. Marta Rosza is the countess, cool and beautiful: a victim, well behaved, who accepts her role without protest. With his dark voice, the bass, Jonathan de la Paz Zaëns, sings straight into her confusing blondness. David Cordier is the seduced counter tenor seducer, Dorin Mara the servant. A perfect cast for the roles.

Sabrina Hölzer’s guidance of the cast is as impressive as Rüdiger Bohn’s conducting of his dependable instrumentalists. This performance proves that opera can be a work of art in singular perfection. The audience, quiet as a mouse, greeted the performance with endless jubilation.

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