Salome, move over. In Written on Skin, an adulteress feeds on her lover’s heart. Here’s grisly Magic Realism, with roots in that Renaissance book of a hundred stories, the Decameron. The score is mesmerizing, shot through with diabolical subtleties. At the time of the premiere in 2012, international pundits debated whether it was the finest opera since Wozzeck (1925) or just of the last 20 years. —Matthew Gurewitsch
The Arts Intel Report
Written on Skin, by George Benjamin
In Written on Skin, a man and his younger wife are far away from a happy marriage.
