‘I find myself increasingly occupied with matters of the human soul, its sublimation and spiritual abyss. Certainly my opera The Ocean Betrayed betrays this preoccupation. This music has been to Hades and back, with Monteverdi and myself.’ Hans-Werner Henze based the story for Das verratene Meer (‘The Sea Betrayed’) on Japanese writer Yuko Mishima’s 1963 novel, Gogo no Eiko (‘The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea’). The book offers an unsettling scenario ‘in which the struggle for normality is doomed to failure’. A young widow, Fusako, falls for a merchant navy officer, Ryuji, creating tension with her son, Noboru, who belongs to a violent gang that will exact revenge on the widow’s lover. Through symphonic interludes, the ‘angry, betrayed sea’ becomes the drama’s witness and its narrative voice in Henze’s painfully dark and brutal opera.

‘The premiere of Henze’s masterpiece is an extraordinary feat for abnormal times... Simone Young, free from the balance constraints of a conventional performance, unleashes the full force of her formidable orchestra.’ – Financial Times ★★★★★

‘As with the Stuttgart Der Prinz Von Homburg, there is terrific cast and orchestra here to do justice to the force of Henze’s unsettling score, and a sympathetic conductor in Simone Young.’ – Opera Journal

Recording: Wiener Staatsoper, 14.12.2020 (live recording)

Cast:
- Noboru/Nummer Drei: Josh Lovell
- Fusako Kuroda: Vera-Lotte Boecker
- Ryuji Tsukazaki: Bo Skovhus
- Nummer Eins: Eric Van Heyningen
- Nummer Zwei: Kangmin Justin Kim
- Nummer Vier: Stefan Astakhov
- Nummer Fünf: Martin Häßler
- Stimme eines Schiffsmaats: Jörg Schneider