From the cycle "Blickwinkel Oper"
Oil on canvas, 2022, 100 x 140 cm (H x W)
Scene and performance from the opera " Die tote Stadt" by Wolfgang Erich Korngold, Vienna State Opera, 2017. Production by Willy Decker. Herbert Lippert in the role of Paul.
In the production of the Vienna State Opera, "Die Tote Stadt" is not a real place, but a deep, darkened room in which the mourners lead a sham existence with the shadows of their dead. This place would therefore be wherever vital mourning has frozen into stony despair, where pain turns into denial and refusal of life. A dead silent, blind corner of the human soul, where the inconsolable find refuge from the merciless and vulgar claim of life, which dawns a new day, a new life over the death of the loved one, as if nothing had happened. 
Paul lives in Bruges only in memory of his dead wife Marie. In a room of his house, which for him has become the "church of the past," he keeps all the things that remind him of her. Marietta, a guest dancer in Bruges, accepts Paul's invitation to visit him. In a dream, Paul experiences a night of love with Marietta, which evokes feelings of guilt in him.
Dark brown tones are reminiscent of Willy Decker's production. Paul sits in his room in a fauteuil, dreaming. His thoughts are conflicted with his dead wife and Marietta. In the background his second "I".