She is in her mid-twenties and stuck in the bosom of her family. She has life ahead of her, but suspects that the future only has the familiar to offer. Dora, opera heroine of the 21st century, meets the life plans of her present with uncompromising total rejection and restlessly and aimlessly searches for something different. Bernhard Lang's rhythm-driven music with its loops and samplings becomes Dora's accomplice, as new paths constantly appear behind the obsessive repetition of what appears to be the same.
"How I hate this landscape. And how this landscape lets me hate it." Dora enters the opera stage with a declaration of war on the world. The young woman - already grown up and still in the bosom of her family - is in search of vitality. Every morning, however, seems to be the return of yesterday and life a page already written in full. Dora throws all opportunities for advancement and offers for the future to the wind. She is looking for something else, for a direction, but is treading water. In the title character of their opera, writer Frank Witzel and composer Bernhard Lang formulate the question and longing for something fresh and new.
Dora's search in a wounded post-industrial region, which was once a flourishing promise of the future, is also permeated by an attitude to life that questions the very meaning of the future. Dora's urge to escape the return of the same old thing finds a secret accomplice in Bernhard Lang's rhythm-driven music.
World premiere March 3, 2024
Further performances: March 8, 15 and 22, April 1 and 4, 2024
