Death’s Door

Aribert Reimann’s ability to wrest moods of profound unease from the instruments of the orchestra has always been matched by an unerring discernment in selecting sources that play to his stylistic strengths. Acting frequently as his own librettist, he has drawn from diverse figures of European literature – Strindberg, Lorca, Grillparzer – and, with minimal interference to the spirit of the originals, has constructed operatic worlds entirely his own. His ninth opera, L’Invisible, which had its world première at the Deutsche Oper as their first new production of the season, used three plays by Maurice Maeterlinck as the starting point for a highly condensed and completely enthralling meditation on the various guises of death. With a dynamic production by Vasily Barkhatov, a strong ensemble of singers, and the committed musical direction of…