As You Were! As You Are!

"Time – it is a strange thing," sings the Marschallin in the first act of Der Rosenkavalier, "sometimes I hear it flowing." For the season opener, Simon Steen-Andersen embarks on a quest to follow this "sound of time," descending deep beneath the stage and into the intertwined histories of Zurich Opera and its younger counterpart, the Bernhard Theater.

At the heart of this exploration stands Liliana Nikiteanu, herself an integral part of Zurich Opera’s story for the past 34 years. Though long celebrated for her portrayals of the young lover Octavian, she could now be seen as something of a real-life Marschallin – a figure of wisdom and reflection, looking back on a remarkable career.

With playful ingenuity, the versatile composer and director interweaves echoes of the opera house’s season premieres with the signature formats of the Bernhard Theater. Like a fever dream, the lines between fiction and reality, past and present, opera and life begin to blur, as the performance drifts between the opera’s substage and the subconscious of its longest-serving ensemble member.

As You Were! As You Are!

"Time – it is a strange thing," sings the Marschallin in the first act of Der Rosenkavalier, "sometimes I hear it flowing." For the season opener, Simon Steen-Andersen embarks on a quest to follow this "sound of time," descending deep beneath the stage and into the intertwined histories of Zurich Opera and its younger counterpart, the Bernhard Theater.

At the heart of this exploration stands Liliana Nikiteanu, herself an integral part of Zurich Opera’s story for the past 34 years. Though long celebrated for her portrayals of the young lover Octavian, she could now be seen as something of a real-life Marschallin – a figure of wisdom and reflection, looking back on a remarkable career.

With playful ingenuity, the versatile composer and director interweaves echoes of the opera house’s season premieres with the signature formats of the Bernhard Theater. Like a fever dream, the lines between fiction and reality, past and present, opera and life begin to blur, as the performance drifts between the opera’s substage and the subconscious of its longest-serving ensemble member.