At the end there is self-empowerment, the formulation of a utopia, recovery of self-determination and liberation from external domination. Georg Friedrich Haas’s latest opera, Sycorax, had its world premiere in Bern. The work had been commissioned by Bühnen Bern’s new general director Florian Scholz. Mollena Williams-Haas, a noted activist of colour, portrayed the title character created for her by Haas.

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About Sycorax

Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" is enshrined in the historical canon of literature and theatre. There is a character in the play who is only mentioned and never seen: Sycorax, whose son Caliban is exploited and harshly treated by Prospero. Brought back to life as the title character of Georg Friedrich Haas’s opera, she now is given a voice. Together with her son, she processes her true story – her arrival on the island and Prospero’s role in the loss of her powers – and finally, having recovered her self-determination, frees herself from external domination.


The opera Sycorax is a tribute to the performer and activist of colour Mollena Williams-Haas, who embodies the title character on stage. It is the Bern Opera’s second commissioned work from Georg Friedrich Haas, one of today’s most renowned composers. In his quest for harmony, captured in the music by the constant, nearly imperceptible retuning of the instruments, the composer formulates the process to the point of a musical utopia. The young director Giulia Giammona finds a highly individual approach to the questions of possession, living in harmony with nature and, after that, what it can mean to rewrite the canon and conceptualize a future when confronting the past.

Press quotes

"Haas retunes the instruments – a practice he has used to great effect in other compositions – and fans out the familiar twelve-note scale as the piece progresses, thereby availing himself of a larger tonal palette. The rather small orchestra consists of strings only, at times lending a two-dimensional quality to the scene, then unexpectedly rising and sinking; at other times, by means of harmonics and retunings, producing iridescent, billowing, cloudlike, impenetrable sounds that eschew any and all concreteness. A stunning auditory experience, greatly enhanced by the Berne Opera Chorus."


"That the 30 singers...materialize in the middle of the set, disappearing again only to reappear later, fits in with the little cultural rush this piece arouses. Individual sentences that one notices during the performance vanish from memory afterwards. They are probably saved somewhere else, perhaps in the heart or mind. Or in the breath, provided one hasn’t forgotten to inhale them."

Score of Sycorax