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The opera starts with an empty stage and the surprising character of The Spectator who imagines and introduces entrances and exits of couples and groups of people walking along with their quarrels and hopes, aims and fears, conflicts, obsessions and longings for happiness.
Scene by scene the number of people on stage grows. They end up in a kind of mass migration which has to cope with questions of leadership, war and helplessness. Some of them seem to be taken from a street around the corner, some of them are mysterious, several are obviously connected with ancient myths and fairy tales. Everybody is looking for a chance to survive and to find a place to live in peace but something is missing: communication becomes difficult, the fellow man, the opposite partner is vanishing and time is dissolving
(Spuren der Verirrten)The Lost, written as a kind of novel play by Peter Handke (one of the most important poets of our time with Austrian roots) is a philosophical stocktaking of the estate of our civilization. At the same time it asks for celebrating the theatre as a place for the playful examination of basic questions for our existence.
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