Those hoping for immediate beauty, gripping theatrical twists or even biographical clarity would do well to recalibrate their expectations. Unsuk Chin’s latest opera Die dunkle Seite des Mondes (The Dark Side of the Moon) – a world premiere that also marks the final new production conducted by Kent Nagano during his tenure at the Staatsoper Hamburg – unfolds in an atmosphere of psychological introspection and conceptual abstraction. Loosely inspired by the correspondence exchanges between Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Gustav Jung, the work instead creates a psychological and symbolic space that resists linear interpretation. Any attempt to pin it down via conventional biography or dramaturgy proves futile.
The libretto is penned by the composer herself in collaboration with Kerstin Schüssler-Bach. Divided into two acts and ten scenes, the structure is clear, almost clinical. Act 1 ends with the pivotal encounter between the tormented physicist Kieron and the cynical “soul healer””Astaroth. Scenes alternate between real-life institutional settings (Kieron's research institute) and inner psychological spaces (dream sequences and encounters with surreal figures), giving the opera a deliberate rhythm of contrast between the regulated world and the irrational milieu.
Staging, direction and design form a tightly controlled ecosystem. The visual language of the production is strikingly geometric and architectonic, dominated by a cool, analytical lighting effect, sculpting the space with crisp severity, rendering objects and performers in stark volumetric clarity. Scene changes are equally executed with superb precision and conceptual economy. Digital projections, primarily celestial and geometric, serve not only as a reflection of Kieron’s scientific obsession but also as a symbolic attempt to map the unknowable.
A central element in this highly economic stage language is the use of a live-feed video camera. In the research institute scenes, a fixed overhead camera captures the minutiae of Kieron’s desk – filled with diagrams, papers and letters – and projects them onto a screen above, suggesting a mind under constant observation. Similar close-ups are employed during the scenes with Astaroth, the so-called “soul healer”, whose patients lie on clinical beds under harsh lighting; here, the camera fixates on the subtle facial tremors of the patients. In the chaotic pub scene, the camera becomes handheld, roving intrusively through the drunken crowd and zooming in on micro-gestures and facial expressions with voyeuristic intensity.
Musically, Die dunkle Seite des Mondes creates a delicate sound world, filled with spectral textures, volatile dynamic ruptures and exquisitely calibrated timbral gradations. It is both expansive and intimately psychological. The full orchestra offers a vast palette range and finely articulated transparency. Under Nagano’s poised and clear-eyed direction, the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg delivered Chin’s complex score with remarkable precision and sensitivity.
Yet the score also presents a deliberate, at times disconcerting, austerity. Vocal writing hovers in a liminal space between incantation, free recitation and hypnotic chant, denying any melodic release or emotional arc. This technique aligns with the opera’s introspective tone but runs the risk of emotional monotony, especially given the dense, often protracted libretto which is elliptical and philosophically loaded.
This can be clearly illustrated in the performance of title role. Throughout the demanding 3-hour+ duration, Thomas Lehman embodied Dr Kieron’s complex psyche with remarkable stamina and dramatic acuity, skilfully navigating Chin’s challenging libretto and sustaining the character’s emotional intensity amid the opera’s hypnotic vocal style. From the outset, Kieron is a deeply contradictory figure: brilliant yet caustic, admired yet profoundly isolated. His existential torment and inability to forge genuine connections – particularly with Miriel (Siobhan Stagg), the woman who loves him – serve as the emotional core of the opera.
Kieron’s recurring dreams were brought to life by Kangmin Justin Kim as the Anima and Andrew Dickinson as the Lichtwesen, whose compelling performances added a haunting, ethereal dimension to the opera’s symbolically dense universe.The role of Meister Astaroth, the enigmatic “soul healer”, was convincingly rendered by Bo Skovhus, whose commanding presence and vocal nuance added gravitas to the scenes centred on psychological unraveling.
What emerges from Chin’s opera is a world of brittle beauty and philosophical detachment. While some may find the work's intellectual opacity and emotional restraint alienating, others may admire the precision of its construction and the seriousness of its inquiry. This is not an opera that yields easily to casual viewing; rather, it invites its audience to inhabit a world where thought, sound and image converge in a slow-burning meditation on identity, meaning and the terrifying elusiveness of truth.
This new opera confirms Chin’s place among the most rigorous and uncompromising composers of our time. Since Stravinsky and Britten, few contemporary operas have dared to confidently claim a place in the permanent repertoire of major opera houses. This work’s profound seriousness of purpose, meticulously considered structure and rigorously controlled stagecraft stand as a valuable and commendable attempt.
