The Decision 2023
Comrades! Mission accomplished! Freedom is here! We are hopeful for the future and grateful for our success!
Birmingham Opera Company welcomed comrades to The Party HQ in March 2023 for a new production of Bertolt Brecht and Hans Eisler’s The Decision.
Four agitators are dispatched from Soviet Russia to foster revolution in pre-communist China. En route they meet a young sympathiser who offers to be their guide, but when they return to Moscow, they confess to his killing. When is it right to kill?
Brimming with highly charged drama, music and moral dilemma, this rarely performed, provocative work proved an exciting challenge for our volunteers, artists, and audiences alike.
★★★★ The Stage
★★★★ The Observer
"Impressive...immersive...delivered with conviction" - The Stage
"an encounter with a genuinely evil work of art" - The Spectator
"one hell of a party!"- Audience member
Content Advisory
This production contains scenes of a violent nature and use of strobe lighting.
Get a flavour
We've created a short video reel so you can get an idea of what our The Decision was like
By arrangement with Universal Edition as agent for Hanns Eisler
and Alan Brodie Representation as agent for The Estate of Bertolt Brecht.
Production Photographs
All photos by Adam Fradgley
The Party Acknowledges
Text and Lyrics Bertolt Brecht
Music Hanns Eisler
Translation John Willett
Director Anthony Almeida
Conductor Alpesh Chauhan OBE
Designer Claudia Fragoso
Chorus Directors
Mariana Rosas and Themba Mvula
The Agitators
Aimee Berwick
Paksie Vernon
Therese Collins
Wendy Dawn Thompson
The Party
Birmingham Opera Company Chorus & Actors
Birmingham Opera Company Orchestra
Visiting Delegates (aka. The Public as themselves)