Die lange Reise

First performance: 3 December, 2014
Fészek Művészklub Budapest, Hungary

Ballad from the opera The Golden Dragon

Die lange Reise (The long journey), composed in the style of a ballad, is the final monologue of Eötvös’ opera based on the drama The Golden Dragon of the same name by Roland Schimmelpfennig.

A young chinese man with toothache is working illegally in the kitchen of the Asian restaurant The Golden Dragon which is situated in a random town. His colleagues try to help him by pulling out the tooth with a pipe wrench; the tooth lands in a plate Thai soup served to a stewardess. A girl is pregnant and quarrels with her boyfriend. A young chinese girl is forced into prostitution in the floors above the restaurant, the sister of the young Chinese man he was looking for. He however bleeds to death as a result of the tooth operation. His colleagues throw him into the river running through the town. The stewardess also throws the tooth into the river. The river washes the corpse down to the sea where it floats back to his home country – this final journey is the subject of the monologue.

/Peter Eötvös/

Translated by Lindsay Chalmers-Gerbracht