An Ancient City Revisited

Jörg Widmann’s Babylon is a musically ambitious, intellectually demanding investigation into the role of ritual, religion and myth in a nominally ancient society that nonetheless has parallels with our own. It had its première in 2012 in Munich, but for its first performances at the Staatsoper Berlin, it appeared in a newly revised version and with a completely new staging by Andreas Kriegenburg. If Peter Sloterdijk’s ideologically loaded, defiantly undramatic libretto may ultimately preclude any degree of popular success, it is nonetheless a fascinating work of modern opera that will reward those with the patience to unravel its thematic complexities.

The libretto is far more successful as a collection of intriguing ideas than a work of narrative drama. There is a story of sorts: Tammu, a Jew living in Babylon who has become a confidante…