The libretto and score for Johannes Maria Stauds new opera Die Weiden were written in parallel, developed through constant communication.

It is 8 December 2018, and the first world premiere in eight years at the Vienna State Opera creates great attention in the press. The Austrian composer Johannes Maria Staud (born 1974) and the Dresden-born poet Durs Grünbein (born 1962) have created a politically-charged opera which warns of a Europe drifting to the right. The duo, who have already worked together on two operas and a monodrama, searched for “contemporary material that shows the insecurity of society,” and were inspired by the works of Joseph Conrad, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood and T.S. Eliot.

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