A married couple in bed: one asleep, the other awake and thinking—and as she thinks, her imagination runs wild. This daring, visceral new opera accessibly retells one of the most monumental novels in the English language through the consciousness of women and nonbinary characters still finding their voices 100 years after its publication.
The narrative of Homer’s Odyssey— as retold through James Joyce’s earthy modernist portrayal of a single day in Dublin, Ulysses—is infused into the interior lives of interconnected characters rocked by grief.
Nighttown presents the raucous “Circe” chapter of Joyce’s book through the perspective of opera singer Molly Bloom’s (Joyce’s “Penelope” character) famous closing soliloquy.
The opera portrays the events of this episode as Molly’s own odyssey—rife with contemporary angles and themes that resonate strongly in our present world—launching from dreamy musings in bed next to her sleeping husband into a wild world of her own imagination.
Through dramatic forays into sexuality, sedition, collision, confrontation, transgression, and ultimately, profound loss, Nighttown shows us how to lose, and then once again find, a sense of home—not where, but who, that is.
A collaboration with the Classical Department of the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, the production will be conducted by Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg and directed by Robert Chevara, who returns to the DNOA for a third time. His previous productions with us include the unforgettable Dutch premiere of Dominick Argento’s “Postcard from Morocco” (2022).
The production opens at Amare, The Hague, on Tuesday, 03. February 2026 (19:30), with further performances on Wednesday, 04. February 2026 (19:30), Friday, 06. February 2026 (19:30), and Saturday, 07. February 2026 (14:15).
More information and tickets: https://www.opera-academy.nl/performances/nighttown/
