By Damián Autorino
Editor at Moto Perpetuo
Das kalte Herz, an opera in 12 pictures by Matthias Pintscher, occupies a prominent place in the current season of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. The work marks Pintscher’s return to the operatic stage after more than two decades, following L’Espace Dernier (2004), and stands as one of the most substantial contemporary opera projects presented by the house in recent years.
The production is realised as a co-production with the Théâtre national de l’Opéra-Comique, situating the opera within a broader European framework and underlining its life beyond a single venue.
From fairy tale to contemporary opera
The libretto, by Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg, draws loosely on the 1827 fairy tale by Wilhelm Hauff. Rather than following the original narrative closely, Gerzenberg reshapes the material into a sequence of tableaux, shifting the emphasis away from moral instruction towards psychological states and open-ended situations. This approach is reflected in the work’s subtitle, opera in 12 pictures, which signals a dramaturgy based on images and atmospheres rather than linear development.
The forest, central to Hauff’s tale, remains a defining space in the opera. Here it functions less as a setting for action than as a liminal environment, where boundaries between humanity and nature are tested and transformation becomes possible.
Staging and dramaturgical perspective
The staging is directed by James Darrah Black, whose work spans opera, theatre, and film. Black approaches Das kalte Herz as the inner journey of a protagonist shaped by displacement and uncertainty. In material produced by the Staatsoper, he describes the forest as the place “where changes occur” and characterises the “cold heart” not simply as cruelty, but as indifference—a state in which emotional withdrawal becomes more destructive than overt aggression. This reading aligns with the opera’s refusal to impose a single meaning, leaving interpretation deliberately open.
Singing, orchestra, and cultural context
For Pintscher, Das kalte Herz represents a conscious rethinking of his operatic writing. In returning to the genre, he has emphasised the desire to place the singing voice—an inherently expressive human presence—at the centre of the work. The opera was composed specifically for the Staatskapelle Berlin, whose sound identity plays a formative role in the score.
Pintscher has pointed to the orchestra’s rich colour, flexibility, and responsiveness, as well as its characteristically dark sonority, as decisive elements in shaping the music. The collaboration also carries a personal dimension: having left Germany as a teenager and spent much of his career abroad, the composer has described this project as a return to the German-speaking world, reconnecting his musical language with cultural and sonic references that had long remained at a distance.
An institutional commitment
With Das kalte Herz, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden places a large-scale contemporary opera at the centre of its programming. Conducted by the composer himself and performed by the Staatskapelle Berlin, the production brings together a creative team drawn from different artistic disciplines and situates Pintscher’s long-awaited return to opera within a clearly articulated institutional context.
Rather than offering closure or moral resolution, Das kalte Herz unfolds as an open theatrical and musical space—one in which ambiguity, transformation, and human vulnerability remain deliberately unresolved.
Performance details
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