Valer Sabadus in »Malina« Premiere at SWR Festspiele Schwetzingen

On 24 and 25 April 2026, the opera Malina by Karola Obermüller and Peter Gilbert, directed by Franziska Angerer and co-produced with Theater Aachen, premiered at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. Valer Sabadus performed the role of Malina, the male alter ego of the unnamed female narrator.

Commissioned on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ingeborg Bachmann’s birth, the opera is based on her novel of the same name, with a libretto by Tina Hartmann, and was produced for Theater Aachen.

 

In an article in the FAZ dated April 27, 2026, Jan Brachmann wrote:

“The countertenor Valer Sabadus [...] possesses an uncanny gift: gentleness as perfidy. For years, he has captivated audiences with his full-bodied yet delicate mezzo-soprano in works by Handel, Gluck, and Mozart [...].”

“When Akbari and Sabadus […] sing the Slovenian words for ‘I and you’ — ‘jaz in ti’ — their voices merge in overflowing beauty.”

On Online Music Magazin dated May 2, 2026, Stefan Schmöe wrote:

"As a sign of this ambivalence, the role is written for a countertenor — the male voice in the female register — while repeatedly requiring the singer to perform passages in the baritone range. Valer Sabadus masters both with assurance, sounding gentle and almost tender in the lower register, as if he did not want to hurt the “I” under any circumstances (despite his androgynous appearance, he too occasionally wears a blood-red top). Yet he repeatedly sings, from different positions throughout the auditorium, with his captivatingly soft countertenor voice."

In an article on Die Deutsche Bühne dated May 3, 2026, Andreas Falentin wrote:

"Malina, sung by the impeccably accurate countertenor Valer Sabadus, also has to speak extensively — and does so with great expressiveness."

In an article in the Aachener Zeitung dated May 4, 2026, Armin Kaumanns wrote:

"Thus, several Bachmann-like lines remain in the memory, along with many passages in which the voice and solo orchestral instruments seem to caress one another, producing many refined sounds — above all, the precious timbre of countertenor Valer Sabadus."

 

Further performances will take place at Theater Aachen on 2 and 8 May, as well as 6 and 25 June.