This new opera, based on the film of the same name by Swiss director Xavier Koller, tells the story of a Kurdish family that abandons kind and country to try to get into paradise, i.e., Switzerland. Like a mirage, this paradise fades away with each step forward and ends up disappearing completely in a snowstorm.

More than 30 years ago, a family’s future was sealed by the mountains. Today, people meet their destiny at sea. But for those of us who do not have to make this kind of journey, the story is little more than a parable.

Who better to stage this new opera than Hungarian film and theatre director Kornél Mundruczó, already seen in Geneva with The Makropoulos Case (2020) and Sleepless (2022)? The music of this journey into despair, the first of our productions to be cancelled by the 2020 COVID lockdown, is the work of German composer Christian Jost, whose distinctive orchestral writing has the epic proportions of film music and is full of powerful rhythms and great emotions.