HCM CITY  The HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) will stage the crime opera Yesterday’s Memory at the HCM City Opera House on November 17.

The co-production between HBSO and the Goethe Institute premiered at the Autumn Melody Festival in August before local and foreign audiences.

The opera's German directors, David Hermann and Anna-Sophie Weber, work in opera production in Berlin.

Hermann said he wanted to try something new and that detective topics were always welcomed by audiences.

The opera incorporates choral music and excerpts from compositions and operas by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Weill.

The play opens with a murder at an Opera House, followed by an investigation to find the truth behind the crime.

The inspecting police officer will be featured by tenor Phan Hữu Trung Kiệt, while the victim named Mr X will be played by baritone Đào Mác.

The opera will also include soloists Phạm Khánh Ngọc, Phạm Duyên Huyên, Trần Thành Nam, and Nguyễn Thị Thanh Nguyên.

All soloists received vocal training by German vocal coach Askan Geisler to sing German-language songs in the opera.

The performance will also feature HBSO’s choir and symphony orchestra.

Conductor Minh, who graduated with a Master's in Music in Conducting at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Conservatory, will lead the HBSO symphony orchestra on the night.

Hermann worked with choreographer Nguyễn Phúc Hải to create lightning effects for the opera, while German stage and costume designer Judith Philipp made scenery and props.

Famous Vietnamese designer Quỳnh Paris, who has presented collections at fashion weeks in Việt Nam, New York and Los Angeles, designed the costumes for the opera and gifted them to HBSO.

Hermann has produced three operas for HBSO, including Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus (The Bat), and Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischutz (The Marksman).

He studied at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin, and won first prize at the International Competition of Staging and Stage Design in Graz, Austria in 2000.

He was nominated as best director at the 2018 International Opera Awards in London for his Krenek Trioly at Opera Frankfurt, winning in the category Rediscovered Work of the Year.

He has also directed numerous classical and modern operas such as The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute by Mozart, Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher (Joan of Arc at the Stake) by Arthur Honegger, and L’Heure Espagnole (The Spanish Hour) by Maurice Ravel.

Yesterday’s Memory will begin at 8pm. The Opera House is at 7 Lam Sơn Square in District 1.  VNS