An investigative concert freely adapted from Jules Verne

The famous string quartet has vanished! Midway through a tour of the United States, all trace of the four musicians suddenly disappears. A journalist sets out to find them and traces them to Propellerinsel — an artificial island where a group of wealthy Americans have placed themselves beyond the reach of state jurisdiction. Here, for a generous fee, the quartet supplies billionaires with Western high culture. But even the wealthiest are not on the best of terms with one another, and disaster threatens to strike in the middle of international waters …

In his 1895 novel The Floating Island (L'Île à hélice), Jules Verne already foresaw how the wealthy would seal themselves off with cutting-edge technology, shedding their responsibility to society. In an age of financial cuts, culture becomes a luxury good, while the ultra-rich rediscover classical music as an investment vehicle and a means of distinction.

Opera Opaque brings Verne's visionary novel into the present together with the Zentaur Quartet, searching for a new form somewhere between lecture-performance and chamber concert.