The most obvious interpretation of Brian Ferneyhough and Charles Bernstein’s stagework would of course be to accentuate the sombre and turn the opera into a melancholy shadowplay. This is precisely what director Pia Forsgren has tried to avoid. Nor are there any angel wings or obviously religious symbols among the props. Instead the guiding light has been the borderline quality - the trip back and forth between the living and the dead that progressively lifts the material.

– As far as possible I have reduced scenic expression rather than add a lot of details, says Pia Forsgren. I don’t feel at home in naturalistic or realistic theatre and don’t want to dress the figures in overt symbols. Weight is not the important thing in this performance but lightness.

– That’s why I’ve been working with a light almost blinding space rather than underline the darkness that is already in the music and libretto. It would be such a cliché to conjure up an image of the 1930s as a dark decade. The challenge lies in freeing the language in a non-theatrical way that stirs feelings in the audience. I don’t believe in creating other levels of interpretation but am content in carving away at the pre-existing material. The interesting thing about this performance is that the blinding attack can defy gravity. The answer to the multitude of shades in the opera is a space with no shade at all.

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