The Premiere of Beyond the Garden - my new chamber opera with Susan Bickley and Katja Konvalinka for Slovenian Chamber Music Theatre.

Susan Bickley and Katja Konvalinka in the workshop of Beyond the Garden in London in July 2019

The new chamber opera is a ghost story loosely based on the relationship between Alma Mahler and her daughter, Manon Gropius who died at the age of 18. It explores relation between parents and children, but also ideas of loss and memory. How do we wish to construct a narrative for ourselves - and do even we believe it? With a libretto by Aoife Mannix the new work will premiere in Ljubljana before going on the Maribor and Brno in the Czech Republic. It will be seen in Festivals in the UK in 2021.

Oltre il Giardino (Beyond the Garden). The house in Venice (now an hotel) which Alma Mahler owned and where they were staying when Manon Gropius was taken ill.

Read Robert Hugill’s Blog about the workshop here.