Die Tragödie des Teufels

SYNOPSIS

Lucifer and his assistants bring Adam and Eve into impossible situations in order to demonstrate to them the invalidity of human values. Among these assistants is ‘Lucy’ who is in fact ‘Lilith’, Adam’s fi rst wife, who was created out of the same lump of clay as Adam but was banished from paradise by God as she insisted on living on equal terms with Adam and refused to subordinate herself to her husband or to God. The episodes are simulations controlled by Lucifer and his team. A desert mutates into a hostile border scenario similar to that running between the USA and Mexico. The scene in Egypt gives the appearance of a hotel city such as Las Vegas where terror lurks behind the golden façade. The episode in Greece could be taking place in a commando bunker in a war of the future. In the Byzantine/Baghdad scene, the medieval ideology of the Crusaders is blended with torture scenes as if in a nightmare of human depredation and self-contempt. The shop scene transports the audience into a vision of the future of a society made up of an infinitely creatable army of clones; at this point Lucifer loses control over the game. Ultimately, Adam lands back in the desert episode where everything began and where all will come to an end: Lucy/Lilith triumphs. Adam recognises her true identity. Eve attempts to persuade him to embark on a life together by disclosing her pregnancy. Adam is however under Lilith’s control: he kills Eve and unites with Lilith, as ‘No man shall henceforth be created – let us begin a new lineage without delay’. Lucifer remains; his tragedy is the loss of power and the end of the principle of evil.

COMMENTARY

The starting point of this opera was provided by the stage play ‘The Tragedy of Man’ by the Hungarian author Imre Madách (1823-1864) in which Lucifer challenges God to a battle for Adam’s soul. He shows Adam and Eve after their fall into a state of sin dream sequences depicting phases of the downfall of the world and the human race, but ultimately experiences the saving of Adam through Eve: she bears his child and they both carry on living – with God and Lucifer as antagonists on an equal footing. Eötvös and his librettist Albert Ostermaier have taken Madách’s play a step further. In Die Tragödie des Teufels, there is no redemptive ending, but instead a deeply pessimistic view of the future without solid foundations: it is no longer possible to determine between reality and virtuality, the familiar and dependable balance between good and evil has been abandoned and Lucifer no longer has a justification for living. The unorthodox division of the orchestra into an ensemble in the orchestra pit dominated by percussion and a second orchestra behind the scenes in which the strings play a significant role exponentiates the ambiguity of the text: a constantly changing polyphonic tonal space is created between the two orchestral groups and the singers onstage.