Tue, May 27, 2025, 7.30 pm | Main Stage
Unsuk Chin
Die dunkle Seite des Mondes
Introduction at 6.50 pm
Dr. Kieron, a brilliant physicist, revered and feared by his colleagues, dives into the shady demimonde at night, in a restless search for human happiness. In his sleep, he is haunted by dreams in which he encounters mysterious recurring beings, mysterious numbers and symbols. With the soul healer Master Astaroth, he hopes to find solutions to the mysteries of his life, with fatal consequences ...
For her second opera, the award-winning composer Unsuk Chin was inspired by the life and work of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli – pioneer of quantum physics, Nobel Prize winner and temporary professor in Hamburg – and his relationship with the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. A faustian opera of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Musical Direction: Kent Nagano
Production: Dead Centre
Stage: Jeremy Herbert
Costumes: Janina Brinkmann
Lighting: James Farncombe
Video: Sophie Lux
Choreography: Sasha Milavic Davies
Dramaturgy: Angela Beuerle, Michael Sangkuhl
Commissioned by the State Opera Hamburg with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
Opera in two acts and ten pictures
Based on a fictional story by the composer, inspired by the relationship
between Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Gustav Jung
Libretto by Unsuk Chin, with the collaboration of Kerstin Schüssler-Bach
In German with German and English surtitles
Supported by the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung
