In Kurt Weill’s famous Broadway opera Lady in the Dark, Liza Elliot, editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine, ends up with a psychiatrist due to mental complaints. Through three dream sequences you are taken into Liza’s subconscious, which are, as it were, a triptych of short operas: the ‘Glamour’ dream, the ‘Wedding’ dream and the ‘Circus’ dream. The themes of her dreams, such as work and performance pressure, self-image and self-fulfillment in a hectic society, are today more recognizable than ever.

Director Anna Pool, together with the celebrated American conductor David Stern, presents this Weill classic to the Dutch public for the first time. In her production, Pool reflects on the dated male-female relationships. “I let the audience know that we are all aware of the fact that this piece was written in a different time, while still letting the audience experience the original play and Liza’s journey.” Not only Liza is lying on the psychiatrist’s couch , the other characters in the story are also scrutinized. With a wink, we zoom in on the behavior of the men in the 1940s. In this way Pool tries to make the proportions more equal. “Not as a feminist act, but as an act of liberation so that we can continue to enjoy Lady in the Dark.”

Lady in the Dark is performed in English with Dutch and English surtitles. Co-production of Opera Zuid and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.