Helmut Lachenmann: Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern

Robert Wilson said, when preparing to stage Helmut Lachenmann’s deeply intricate and sensually vibrant opera Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, that he could not imagine staging it in a typical opera house. He could not have found a better hall than the Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum, a medium-sized town about an hour north-east of Düsseldorf and one of the host cities of this year’s Ruhrtriennale.