Jakob Lenz now available on dvd

In 2015, Wolfgang Rihm’s unsettling opera adaptation of Georg Büchner’s novella Lenz proved an unexpected hit for the Staatsoper Stuttgart and La Monnaie, as more than 50 opera journalists from around the world elected it Production of the Year in the reference magazine Opernwelt. The fact that a chamber opera for three protagonists and barely twelve musicians, written in the late seventies by a composer then 26 years old, found unanimous praise among professional crit­ics, was due to the synergy between three exceptional artists: stage director Andrea Breth and conductor Franck Ollu created from the psychodrama of the romantic poet Jakob Lenz, the spectre of a modernity abandoned by the gods and devoid of meaning. In the lead role, baritone Georg Nigl did not spare himself, voice and body alike, and with the total, almost disturbing commitment of his performance, earned himself the title of Opera Singer of the Year. In September he returns to Brussels for the lead role in Macbeth Underworld.