Lost Highway

About

Yuval Sharon’s Frankfurt staging of Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway treats the German premiere as an experimental lab where opera and film constantly intermingle. A two-level set with a greenscreen below and a translucent projection surface above enables live-filmed actions to appear within stylized, Edward Hopper–like digital landscapes. This visual split mirrors the protagonist’s psychological fragmentation. Musically, Ensemble Modern performs from behind a wall, with the conductor synchronizing instrumental forces, live electronics, and samples via video monitors. The hybrid cast of classically trained singers and actors moves through Neuwirth and Jelinek’s Lynch-inspired world, where image, sound, and narrative fuse into a meticulously controlled hallucination.