Today, the Theater Koblenz presents the world première of Wolf unter Wölfen (Wolf Among Wolves), an opera composed by Søren Nils Eichberg with a libretto by John von Düffel based on Hans Fallada's novel.
It is the composer's fourth opera after Grete Minde (2009), Glare (London, November 15, 2014) and Schönerland (Wiesbaden, September 16, 2017).
Berlin in the summer of 1923 : inflation keeps people on their toes. From day to day, the value of the mark falls down. The social fabric has got into trouble. On the streets of the capital, the innocent impoverished, the opportune criminals, the war disabled, gamblers, drunkards and whores. In the midst of this charged atmosphere, three former soldiers meet. Wolfgang Pagel is desperately looking for money to marry his girlfriend Petra and to lead her out of poverty. Officer Studmann never got on his feet again professionally after the end of the war. And Captain von Prackwitz urgently needs reapers to bring in the harvest on his estate Neulohe. Together they leave Berlin - 'Capital of Sin and Cheap Babylon' - to start a better life on the Prackwitz estate. But the idyll there is deceptive : for a long time now, people have lost all their properties. Everyone cares only about themselves, being only a wolf among wolves. (freely adapted from the Theater Koblenz website)The cast includes mezzo Danielle Rohr (Petra Ledig), tenor Tobias Haaks (Wolfgang Pagel), baritone Christoph Plessers (Joachim von Prackwitz), tenor Mark Bowman-Hester (Studmann), mezzo Monica Mascus (Frau Thumann / Frau Pagel) and soprano Theresa Dittmar (Eva von Prackwitz). Karsten Huschke conducts the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie and the Opera Chorus. Waltraud Lehner directs.
