Unsuk Chin: Dark Side of the Moon premiere in Hamburg
The Hamburg State Opera presented in May the premiere of Unsuk Chin’s second opera, Dark Side of the Moon, in which the worlds of physics and psychoanalysis collide.
Conductor Kent Nagano selected Unsuk Chin’s new opera Dark Side of the Moon for his swansong at the Hamburg State Opera, premiered close to two decades after he unveiled her first opera Alice in Wonderland in Munich. The epic premiere in Hamburg brought together an accomplished cast including Thomas Lehman, Bo Skovhus and Siobhan Stagg, and the visually striking production was provided by the Irish-based theatre collective Dead Centre.
Chin’s two act opera was inspired by the life and work of the legendary physicist Wolfgang Pauli and his relationship with the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, and her resulting libretto embraces Faustian and existential themes. As The New York Times noted, Dark Side of the Moon centres on Dr Kieron, “an irascible yet brilliant scientist whose harsh perfectionism masks a fragmenting mental state. Searching for human connection and trying to slow the pace of his thoughts, he falls prey to a cynical, Nietzsche-quoting faith healer, Master Astaroth.”
The new opera received five performances in Hamburg and was recorded for radio by NDR, with the broadcast stream now available for listening, together with interviews:
> NDR broadcast
…a work of restless sonic invention… The music offered a vivid window into the unsaid and the unsayable.”
The New York Times
“Chin’s music, as always delicate, complex and intriguingly descriptive… Musically, this is an outstanding evening.”
Financial Times
“…a strange, outlandishly convoluted and yet profound plot, combined with dazzlingly complex, powerful and violently triumphant music… Kent Nagano conducts his farewell Hamburg premiere with a passion for precision and strong emotion.”
Suddeutscher Zeitung
“…the Dead Centre directing collective masterfully translates the plot into a dreamlike sequence of scenes with recurring visual motifs that provide orientation. And Kent Nagano ignites a sparkling play of colours with the richly stocked orchestra, which at the same time demonstrates how masterfully Chin commands this large apparatus.”
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
“Chin's musical language is complex, yet never hermetic… The orchestra often acts as a psychic resonance chamber in which inner states become audible… Particularly impressive is the way Chin works with silence – as if in a scenic freeze, the listener is repeatedly forced to listen within.”
Klassik.com
“…a fantastic performance – in all parameters. First of all, there is Chin's incredibly powerful, sparkling, thunderous, and raging music… The musical achievement of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra is truly overwhelming.”
Neue Musikzeitung
"This new opera confirms Chin’s place among the most rigorous and uncompromising composers of our time... What emerges from Chin’s opera is a world of brittle beauty and philosophical detachment... This is not an opera that yields easily to casual viewing; rather, it invites its audience to inhabit a world where thought, sound and image converge in a slow-burning meditation on identity, meaning and the terrifying elusiveness of truth... Musically, Dark Side of the Moon creates a delicate sound world, filled with spectral textures, volatile dynamic ruptures and exquisitely calibrated timbral gradations. It is both expansive and intimately psychological."
Bachtrack
Next month sees Unsuk Chin travelling to California for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Seoul Festival that she has curated for the orchestra, including performances of her own Gougalon and Clarinet Concerto (3-8 June). The composer’s first opera Alice in Wonderland receives a new staging in Vienna in the coming season directed by Elisabeth Stöppler, opening at the MusikTheater an der Wien on 17 November. A major feature on Chin’s music has been announced by the Hallé orchestra in Manchester, running throughout the 2025/26 season.
> Further information on Work: Die dunkle Seite des Mondes
Photo: Bernd Uhlig