Commissioned by the MusikTheater an der Wien
How close do we get to a person through their voice? A true crime case about a soldier on a US base in Australia during the Second World War is the starting point for the opera Voice Killer, composed by Czech composer Miroslaw Srnka for the MusikTheater an der Wien. Obsessed by the voice of his mother, who sang nursery rhymes to him, this soldier searched in vain for those in women he happened to meet. Three Australian women fell victim to the mentally ill serial killer before he was caught. Srnka and his librettist Tom Holloway, whose operas South Pole, Singularity and Make No Noise were premiered at the Bavarian State Opera, are particularly interested in the women who become the focus of the perpetrator's attention simply because of their voices. They follow the main character's schizophrenic stream of consciousness and transform the criminal case into a flow of events in which time levels and places are constantly changing. Each murder sets in motion a new stage of escalation until events come to a head, arrest, trial and execution coincide and the perpetrator's victims become his defenders.
World premiere: June 13, 2025
Further performances: June 16, 18, 20 and 23, 2025

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