Composer Hans Thomalla to Release New Opera DARK FALL in April 2026

On Friday, April 3, 2026, German-American composer Hans Thomalla releases Dark Fall, an opera in 13 scenes and the second part of his theatrical "Diptych of Desire," on Oehms Classics. Recorded live during the February/March 2024 world premiere production by the Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim at the Schwetzingen Palace Theatre and performed under the direction of Alan Pierson, Dark Fall explores love, autonomy, and self-determination in the face of aging and memory loss.

While the first opera in Thomalla's "Diptych of Desire," Dark Spring, centered on four adolescents navigating the pressures of a late-capitalist world, Dark Fall turns its focus to later life. The opera's central figure, Ellen, portrayed by soprano Estelle Kruger, is a married woman experiencing the first signs of Alzheimer's disease. As her memory begins to fragment, she falls in love with Owen (baritone Thomas Berau), an old friend invited to stay with her and her husband, Curtis, played by tenor Uwe Eikötter. Their daughter Ilse, performed by contralto Lila Chrisp, becomes a witness to - and participant in - the emotional and ethical upheaval that follows.

In his composer's preface, Thomalla writes that Dark Fall "questions ideas of love and partnership at old age: When are we too ill or too old to fall in love again? To start a new life with a new partner and leave someone else? When are we too limited in our autonomy to freely decide our lives?"

Drawing on Goethe's Elective Affinities, as well as documentary accounts of Alzheimer's and Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, Thomalla and librettist Juliana Spahr construct a drama in which four characters become shifting "elements," attracted and repelled in ever-changing constellations. As Ellen's illness progresses, musical structures themselves begin to dissolve: extended tonal fields, whole-tone harmonies, and increasingly fragmented textures mirror her destabilizing perception of time and memory.

Joshua Clover, who also wrote the lyrics for Dark Spring, returns to craft the opera's arias and ensembles in a direct, contemporary idiom. Thomalla's score moves between pop-inflected melodic writing and a distinctly orchestral, harmonically expansive language, culminating in a sound world that grows progressively distorted and unsettled.

Like its companion opera, Dark Fall examines what happens when individuals are not fully autonomous - whether constrained by social forces or by illness. Yet even as the opera traces Ellen's disappearance, it also charts the emergence of a new and unexpected community among Curtis, Ilse, and Owen. What begins in fracture ends in a fragile reconfiguration of belonging.

Dark Fall Tracklist

CD 1

Act I

1. One, two, three, four [2:31]
2. No. 1 Aria: Why Don't You Listen? [1:37]
3. When you've reached my age [1:59]
4. No. 2 Aria: Why Should I Listen? [2:45]
5. No. 3 Duet: How Will I Survive... Wednesday We Smash the Patriarchy! [2:30]
6. No. 4 Aria: What Is Going On With You, Ellen? [5:36]
7. You must be Owen [2:15]
8. No. 5 Song: Learn This, Do That! [2:43]
9. Welcome! [0:38]
10. No. 3B Quartet: Wednesday We Smash the Patriarchy! [1:53]
11. Interlude 1 [2:12]

Act II
12. Look, these journals [5:05]
13. No. 6 Aria: Sometimes I Feel [4:33]
14. It looks like the attempt to put order in all your things [1:38]
15. No. 7 Duet: Nothing Seems As It Used To Be [3:35]
16. Look! It's Curtis, you, and me! [0:30]
17. Ellen, what happened here? [0:24]
18. No. 8 Aria: I Do This! [1:29]
19. I will clean up now [4:19]
20. No. 9 Quartet: Elective Affinity! [6:06]

Total Time: 54:27

CD 2

1. No. 10 Duet: I Feel That I've Begun To Disappear [12:39]
2. No. 11 Aria: I Am Become Cerberus With Three Heads [2:47]
3. The past months must have been difficult [1:12]
4. No. 12 Duet: You're Kind, But No One Can Help You Worry [5:34]
5. Interlude 2 [1:45]

Act III
6. No. 13 Terzet: One, Two, Three, Four [3:09]
7. It's such a nice holiday in this hotel here [2:07]
8. No. 14 Aria: Don't You Remember? [2:10]
9. Do I remember? [1:09]
10. No. 15 Aria: I Fall [7:19]
11. Owen, this day shows that we all have to rethink our actions [1:40]
12. No. 16 Aria: Each Time You Walk Out The Door [4:20]
13. Curtis! Ilse! [4:08]
14. No. 17 Terzet: Ellen, Tell Us Where You Have Gone [7:14]

Total Time: 57:19

OC2000
Executive Producer OehmsClassics: Iwen Schmees
Recorded: February 2024 at Schwetzingen Palace Theatre, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Germany
Recording Producer, Editing, Mastering: Lennard Schubert
Publisher: Topus Musikverlag
Booklet Notes: Cordula Demattio
Graphic & Design: Paolo Zeccara

About Hans Thomalla

Hans Thomalla is a German-American composer living in Chicago and Berlin. A particular focus of his work lies in music for the stage. He has written four operas, Fremd (Stuttgart Opera 2011), Kaspar Hauser (Freiburg and Augsburg Opera 2016), and Dark Spring and Dark Fall (both Mannheim Opera 2020 and 2024).

Hans Thomalla is the Helen A. Regenstein Professor of Composition at the University of Chicago. He studied at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule and received his doctoral degree in composition from Stanford University. From 1999-2002, he was Assistant Dramaturge and Musical Advisor at the Stuttgart Opera. He has been associated with the Darmstädter Ferienkurse for a long time, where he has served for many years on the composition faculty.

He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, the Composer Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, the Christoph Delz Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. During the academic year 2014/15, he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and in 2024/25 a German Rome Prize Fellow at the Villa Massimo in Rome. He has written music for numerous ensembles and soloists, including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Münchener Philharmoniker, SWR- and SR-Radiosinfonieorchester, The Crossing, Talea, ICE, Ensemble Modern, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Recherche, Arditti Quartet, Spektral Quartet, Nicolas Hodges, Irvine Arditti, Sarah Sun, and many others. His operas have been commissioned by the Stuttgart Opera, Freiburg Opera, Augsburg Opera, and the Nationaltheater Mannheim.

Hans Thomalla is the co-founder of the Chicago-based record label Sideband Records. He appears as a character in Alexander Kluge's story collection "Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor: 48 Stories for Fritz Bauer". Learn more at www.hans-thomalla.com.