About the work
"Senza sangue" is a one-act opera by Péter Eötvös after the second part of Alessandro Baricco's 2002 novella of the same name; Mari Mezei wrote the Italian libretto for a joint commission by the New York Philharmonic and the Philharmonie Cologne. Alan Gilbert conducted the concert premiere on 1 May 2015 in Cologne with Anne Sofie von Otter and Russell Braun, and Róbert Alföldi directed the staged premiere on 15 May 2016 at the Festival d'Avignon.
Plot
Decades after a civil war, the now-aging Nina meets Pedro again, one of the soldiers who once killed her family but spared her as a child. Across seven scenes, the two talk about their shared past and the lives they have led since.
Cultural significance
Eötvös conceived the roughly 48-minute work as a companion piece to Béla Bartók's "Duke Bluebeard's Castle" and dedicated the score to the composer Henri Dutilleux, who had died in 2013.