Violet

About

A sensitive, self-effacing woman, Violet, lives with her husband Felix and the servant Laura in their house. Outside, gunshots, fires, and floods erupt—it is the “end of time and space” and the hours begin to disappear. Time evaporates. Facing her fears, Violet decides to leave her home, sever her ties, and build a different future. Written by two remarkable British artists—playwright Alice Birch, known for multiple libretti for Katie Mitchell, and composer Tom Coult, a student of George Benjamin—this contemporary opera is a dystopian fable about the collapse of the world and ecological disaster seen from the confined space of a kitchen: Violet’s. Violet describes what we are living through—with lucidity, without showiness, without panic. It writes the real. Music and words align without ever clashing; every word and every note feels exact. Director Jacques Osinski underscores this essential clarity, crafting images only theatre can offer: a house slowly vanishes and gives way to Violet’s ark.