Commissioned by the MusikTheater an der Wien
How close do we get to a person through their voice? A true crime story about a soldier on a US base in Australia during the Second World War is the starting point of the opera Voice Killer, which the Czech composer Miroslaw Srnka composed for the MusikTheater an der Wien. Obsessed with the voice of his mother, who sang children's songs to him, this soldier searched in vain for her in women he met by chance. 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 simply because of their voice. In doing so, they follow the schizophrenic stream of consciousness of the main character and transform the crime story into a flow of events in which time levels and places are constantly changing. Each murder sets off a new level of escalation until events escalate, arrest, trial and execution coincide, and the perpetrator's victims become his defenders.
Premiere: June 13, 2025
Further performances: 16, 18, 20 and 23 June 2025
© MusikTheater an der Wien
