Cold Passions

For many years now the Staatsoper Berlin’s first new production of the year has been scheduled to coincide with the Tag der deutschen Einheit – the day marking German reunification – and the combination of a public holiday and a new opera season have traditionally imparted a celebratory air to the evening. This year was noticeably more subdued. Although the Staatsoper, along with most other venues in Berlin, have cautiously reopened their doors after half a year of pandemic-related closure, there is still a palpable sense of things being not quite right; we may all be thankful to be back in the opera house, but with infection rates skyrocketing in Berlin (and elsewhere) the immediate future of cultural life seems as precarious as ever. In this context, Luca Francesconi’s Quartett – which first appeared in 2011 but was performed on this…