A woman is suspended in the immediate aftermath of a death. She recounts fantasies and memories of love and loss and fucking and sickness, kissing, eyeballs, genitals, fingertips, lips and lashes.Through the imminence of her own body, her own mortality, she rediscovers loss as the precondition of experience – of love. The close intertwining of love, death, sex and the experience of loss is condensed into poetic snapshots, sound and large images, which come together to form a journey – each scoured for consoling significance to hold back death’s meaninglessness.

LASH is the first opera by celebrated German-British composer Rebecca Saunders. The work is based on the strikingly pictorial texts of video artist and writer Ed Atkins.

LASH: Acts of Love premiered at Deutsche Oper Berlin on June 20th 2025.

“Rebecca Saunders’ new opera Lash is a wildly inventive triumph… Saunders has never shown any interest in narrative content, and Lash stringently avoids straight storytelling. Berlin’s Deutsche Oper lavished resources on Friday’s world premiere, with directing collective Dead Centre, designer Nina Wetzel and video artist Sébastien Dupouey doing their damnedest to fill in the story’s blanks with opulent imagery. And the result is engrossing. Wetzel’s three mirrored cubes glide soundlessly around the stage, Dupouey’s poetic combination of live and prepared video images moves with the music like a fourth dimension, and the four women (singers Anna Prohaska, Noa Frenkel and Sarah Maria Sun and actor Katja Kolm) perform with phenomenal grace and poise..”
★★★★★
Financial Times

Cast
NOA FRENKEL
KATJA KOLM
ANNA PROHASKA
SARAH MARIA SUN

Live camera NADJA KRÜGER

Musical Direction ENNO POPPE

Synthesizer CHRISTOPH GRUND
Synthesizer ERNST SURBERG
E-Guitar ADRIAN PEREYRA
Orchestra ORCHESTER DER DEUTSCHEN OPER BERLIN

Stage and costume design NINA WETZEL
Light JÖRG SCHUHARDT
Video SEBASTIAN DUPUOUEY

Stage design assistant ASTA HANSEN
Costume design assistant MIRIAM MARTO
Video assistant LUZIE STRASSER

Assistant Directors PHELINE TIEZEL, EVA-MARIA ABELEIN
Dramaturgy SEBASTIAN HANUSA

Direction BUSH MOUKARZEL & BEN KIDD

IMAGES