In English with German surtitles

Conductor: Johannes Kalitzke
Director, set & costume design: Kirill Serebrennikov
With Marisol Montalvo, Della Miles et al.
Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin

Guest performance of the Komischen Oper Berlin

Synopsis

In New Orleans in the 1950s, Dr Bloom has rescued the beautiful young black girl Lulu from the gutter and made her his lover. However, he does not want to publicly admit his liaison and marries her off to a professor. When she cheats on her husband by sleeping with a photographer, the professor suffers a fatal stroke. The subsequent marriage to the photographer also ends in death: he shoots himself when Bloom’s relationship to Lulu becomes clear to him. Lulu then succeeds in marrying Bloom, believing that he is the one she truly loves. But she is unfaithful to him, too. In the quarrel that ensues, she shoots Bloom dead, and is sent to prison. Women, too, fall for Lulu’s charm: the singer Eleanor loves her and makes great personal sacrifices to enable her to leave the prison. Lulu escapes to New York with Bloom’s son, Jimmy, where she works successfully as a high-class call-girl until the 1970s. But she becomes numbed to all feeling. When Eleanor leaves her as well, Lulu finds herself left alone to face the consequences of her profession.