A Chamber Opera
Stefan and Lotte in Paradise has been commissioned by the University with support from Arts Council England, is a free one-hour chamber opera, written by Salford academic and composer Alan Williams and Brazilian composer Marcos Lucas.
It chronicles the last few months of the life of Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig and his wife, Lotte, who both committed suicide in 1942.
At one time the most translated author in the world, Zweig was forced to leave Austria in 1934 soon after the rise to power in Germany of Hitler. He lived in England and New York before moving to Brazil in 1940.
The libretto for Stefan and Lotte in Paradise was written by prize-winning playwright Philip Goulding and deals with the themes of persecution, migration and exile, while the music includes fragments of Zweig’s hand-written scores that are housed at the British Library, Klezmer and the sounds of Brazil.
The opera has received generous funding by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, the University of Salford, and UNIRIO (Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro).
Stefan and Lotte in Paradise 