George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s celebrated opera Written on Skin appears in Rome, Berlin, and Munich in spring 2025. The opera, a taut, intense tale of jealousy, love, and brutality after an Occitan fable, has received over 160 performances since its debut at the Aix-en-Provence festival in 2012 in ten different productions and has been acclaimed as one of the finest works of the twenty-first century by the Guardian.
In May Benjamin conducts a semi-staging of the 90-minute work with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (22-24 May). Mark Stone sings the Protector, a role he has previously performed at the Deutsche Oper and with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in concert; soprano Liv Redpath sings his wife Agnès, with countertenor Raffaele Pe as The Boy/First Angel, both making their role debuts.
The opera made its Italian debut in 2016 at the Teatro Communale, Bolzano, in a production directed by Nicola Raab, with Rossen Gergov conducting the Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento. In 2019 it appeared in concert at the Venice Biennale, with Clemens Schuldt conducting the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai. Benjamin and Crimp’s fourth stage work Picture a day like this will receive its Italian premiere in October 2025 at the Teatro San Carlo, with Corinne Niemayer conducting the world premiere production by Daniel Jenneateau and Marie-Christine Soma.
Katie Mitchell’s celebrated staging is revived by the Deutsche Oper in May, following a triumphant Berlin debut in 2024, with Marc Albrecht returning to the podium. “The colours shift enormously with each scene”, the Berliner Zeitung noted. “One is astonished…Perhaps this is why some critics hailed it as the best opera since Wozzeck.” The cast comprises Daniel Okulitch as the Protector and Hugh Cutting as The Boy/First Angel, with Georgia Jarman reprising the role of Agnès from 2024.
From March 21-29 a new production of the opera directed by Balázs Kovalik was in rep at Munich’s Prinzregententheater, sung by students of the Bayerischen Theaterakademie – see inside their rehearsals with BR-Klassik here. “Benjamin has composed suggestive, magical music”, wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “…a finely woven tapestry of voices, richly embroidered and…glowing distinctively in every moment”. Watch the trailer for the production here. Peter Rundel conducted the BR Münchner Rundfunkorchester in four performances which starred Jakob Schad (The Protector), Annabelle Kern (Agnès) and Elmer Hauser (The Boy/Angel I).