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Liza Elliott, editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine has suffered from panic attacks and depression for months. She is under immense pressure both privately and in her career. Her love life is complicated, she can’t decide between her married boss and lover Kendall Nesbitt and movie star Randy Curtis, while manager Charley Johnson just annoys her. Finally, she decides to see a psychiatrist. By analyzing her dreams, they get to the heart of Liza’s problems.
Lady in the Dark was Kurt Weill’s first Broadway hit, based on a book by Moss Hart and with lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Based on Liza’s psychoanalysis, the piece unfolds in three dreams, which form, as it were, a trilogy of mini-operas. The beautiful main aria ‘My Ship’ runs like a thread throughout the piece, which has been covered by many virtuosos, from Judy Garland to Miles David.
But Lady in the Dark is more than a piece about the demands that life and society place on a woman. It is first and foremost wonderful music theater with sharp humour, imaginative dreams and fantastic songs. In addition to a sublime combination of opera and Broadway music, this opera is also a visual spectacle with beautiful costumes based on fashion from the 1940s.
This Broadway-opera Lady in the Dark revival is performed by the promising British director Anna Pool and the celebrated American conductor David Stern.
Lady in the Dark is performed in English with Dutch and English surtitles. It is a co-production of Opera Zuid and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. In collaboration with the South Netherlands Philharmonic. With support from the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.
