Wallander Opera To Premiere In Germany & Sweden

W – The Truth Beyond is a new opera featuring Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander, composed by Fredrik Sixten, and libretto written by veteran Wallander scriptwriter Klas Abrahamsson. The first performance will be in Tübingen, Germany on 15th July and its Swedish premiere is 13th August in Ystad.

Klas Abrahamsson has worked as both script editor and scriptwriter on several Wallander adaptations so was in tune with the world that Mankell had created. He told Skanska Dagbladet:

“It meant that I was familiar with it from the very beginning… But for obvious reasons I was both terrified and interested at the same time. Mankell’s Wallander is internationally well known so there are great expectations and a heritage to manage.”

Abrahamsson says that in the libretto “Wallander is retiring and thanked with coffee and cake at the police station… and suddenly a handsome middle aged man shows up… (The man) says, ‘You set me up for 15 years for the murder of my father and now I have served my sentence and just wanted to come here and say it was not me.'”

Wallander then devotes his last days of active service to uncovering the truth about the case, but the themes of the opera extend to “ageing and dementia, and a daughter who must be a parent to her father”.

Henning Mankell read the synopsis for the opera before his death and was enthusiastic supporter of the project. “He never read the finished libretto, but it was important for me that he liked what I did,” says Abrahamsson.

W – The Truth Beyond will premiere at Tubingen on 15th July for three performances before moving to the Ystad City Theatre in Sweden on 13th August for seven performances. Tickets are on sale from 17th February.