Parabola and Circula

Marc Blitzstein’s opera Parabola and Circula, written in 1929–1930, was discovered during research on music at the Bauhaus school. Originally planned to premiere at the Dessau Theater, the performance was cancelled due to the rise of Nazism.
Now, nearly a century later, the opera receives its world premiere – in concert form – in Berlin and Norrköping, with seven vocal soloists and full symphony orchestra. The one-act opera tells the tragic story of Parabola and Circula, lovers torn apart by societal pressure and fear.

Blitzstein was a close friend of Leonard Bernstein. The concert also features Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 – The Age of Anxiety (1949), inspired by W.H. Auden’s poem and exploring the spiritual unease of the postwar era.