About the work
“Dark Fall” is an English-language opera in 13 scenes by Hans Thomalla, who wrote the libretto together with the poet Juliana Spahr; the texts for the arias and ensembles are by Joshua Clover. The work was commissioned by the Nationaltheater Mannheim with support from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and premiered on 29 February 2024 at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen. Together with Thomalla's “Dark Spring” (2020) it forms a diptych: where that opera centres on four young people, this one centres on four older ones.
Plot
Ellen is married and shows clear early signs of Alzheimer's disease, yet insists on making her own decisions about her life. She leaves her husband Curtis and begins a relationship with Owen, a friend of the family – which leads to conflict with Curtis and her daughter Ilse. Loosely drawing on motifs from Goethe's “Elective Affinities”, the piece asks at what point a person is denied the capacity for self-determination.
Cultural significance
Thomalla also makes the loss of agency and coherence audible in the music, for instance through disintegrating forms, echoes of pop music and melodies that dissolve into noise. Reviewers of the premiere remarked that the score sometimes sounds rather beautiful for such a serious subject.