Das verratene Meer
Das verratene Meer (The Betrayed Sea) is an opera by Hans Werner Henze. It has music by Henze and a German libretto by Hans-Ulrich Treichel, based on Yukio Mishima’s novel The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. The work is in two parts and 14 scenes.
Composed 1986–1989, it was Henze’s ninth opera and his third for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. It premiered on 5 May 1990 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, conducted by Markus Stenz and produced by Götz Friedrich. The US premiere followed on 8 November 1991 at the San Francisco Opera.
The opera was revised. A second version, the Japanese version, was performed as a concert in Tokyo on 19 June 2004, conducted by Kazuyoshi Akiyama; this was the national premiere of the work in Japan. This Japanese version was revised by conductor Gerd Albrecht and given as a concert version at the Salzburg Festival in 2006, the first time it was performed in Japanese with an all-Japanese cast.
A Viennese version, based on the Japanese version but including some material from the original, was performed in December 2020 at the Vienna State Opera, conducted by Simone Young, to mark the composer’s 80th birthday.
Structure: Part I is Summer; Part II is Winter.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:38 (CET).