Tears of the Knife | The Medium

Saturday 5 September 2026, 7.30
Hotelwelt Kübler, Karlsruhe, Germany

Bohuslav MARTINŮ: Tears of the Knife, H 169
Gian Carlo MENOTTI: The Medium

The double bill Larmes de couteau / The Medium brings together two short operas that hover between grotesque fantasy, spiritual obsession, psychological drama and surreal imagery.

In Bohuslav Martinů’s Larmes de couteau, a bizarre world of demons, disguises, mirrors and dark humour unfolds like a carnival of absurdity. The music is rhythmically vivid, neoclassically transparent and sharply ironic, amplifying the surreal tale of love, death and diabolical temptation.

Menotti’s The Medium offers a darker, more psychologically charged counterpoint. In the suffocating atmosphere of fraudulent séances, the drama between Baba, her daughter Monica and the mute boy Toby gradually dissolves the boundary between reality and hallucination, culminating in tragedy.

The staging blends elements of circus, séance, demonic visions and clownish grotesque. The industrial basement space of Hotelwelt Kübler creates an immersive environment that draws the audience into a world of obsession, fear, absurdity and ambiguous truths.

Performers and creative team

Fridolin Bosse (music direction Larmes de couteau)
​Laura Katharina Hinz (stage direction Larmes de couteau, KBB, public relations, production management)
Anna Schreiber (set design)
Romy Kosma (costumes)
Lavinia Mohr (make‑up)
Cornelius Müller (poster design)
Jakob Roth (photography)
Claudia Rometsch (press relations)
Rosalie Suys (dramaturgy)
Hyunjin Lim (Eleonore)
Dominik Salber (Satan)

More information: https://jungeskollektivmusiktheater.de/larmes-de-couteau-the-medium/