Opera by Russell Hepplewhite Libretto by Seth Bockley World Premiere
Oldenburgisches Staatstheater
Febuary 2024
The Crash
A once-shiny, now-bankrupt investment bank in the summer of 2008: A clean-up crew is tasked with picking up the shards left by the crash. Among paperwork, garbage and electrical scrap, the clean-up finds incriminating evidence against one of the securities traders. They weather their own chance for wealth – where one falls, the other rises. But the former employees of the bank also try to fight their way through the scheming thicket and save what is yet to be salvaged. The bursting of the real estate bubble in 2008 and the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment bank exposed a system that made winners at the expense of many individuals. In ‘The Crash’, British composer Russell Hepplewhite and American librettist Seth Bockley tackle this theme with a view to the individual fates of ordinary people – a darkly humorous farce about greed and humanity’s inability to learn from mistakes.
Composer/ Russel Hepplewhite
Libretto/ Seth Bockley
Musical director/ Giuseppe Barile
Director/ Nils Braun
Light design/ Arne Waldl
Stage and Costume design/ Rebekka Bentzen
Dramaturgy/ Vanessa Clavey
ON STAGE
Magdalena/ Martha Eason, Brianna Meese
Agata/ Marie-Sophie Janke
Jocelyn/ Paola Leoci, Lea Bublitz
Charlie/ Ryan Stoll
Peter Zylko/ Gabe Clarke
Tom/ Paul Brady
Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester
Extras of the Oldenburg State Theatre