In the search for beauty and meaning, the renowned author Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice on a whim. In the sultry atmosphere of a cholera epidemic, with the scirocco blowing, he falls in love with Tadzio, a youthful aristocrat who is staying in the same hotel with his family. As Aschenbach projects his loneliness and desire on him, fantasy and imagination intermingle with existence. His obsession progresses to a fever pitch as he becomes increasingly divorced from reality.

Inspired by the original Thomas Mann novella, Britten’s magnificently atmospheric opera comes to life in this new production from WNO, creating images of ravishing beauty, as well as exploring the grotesque hidden beneath the search for the sublime. As poetic worlds of the imagination collide with reality, the early 20th century acts as a mirror to our times.