George Benjamin: His opera “Lessons in Love and Violence” in Zurich – Culture

George Benjamin, born in London in 1960, is one of the most popular living opera composers. Because he can invent sounds of moonlit intensity, one hears (consciously or unconsciously) role models like Claude Debussy, especially his teacher Olivier Messiaen. Because he thinks up peculiarly beautiful melodies and then surrounds them with a tonal mystery that, and this is rare in contemporary opera, sufficiently satisfies the supporters of the avant-garde, but at the same time does not frighten the audience accustomed to Wagner, Verdi, Strauss. After the premiere of his opera “Lessons in Love and Violence” at the Zurich Opera House, the middle-class audience cheered him, fascinated by what he had just heard.