Adults only

Why do we feel more alive when being torn to shreds by insane passion? What's it like to really go insane for love?

Schumann knew. His early romantic song cycle The Poet's Love delves deep into the psyche of a man who's the very essence of tortured love.

Wagner, trapped in a loveless marriage and in love with another man's wife, knew.

Ruth Ellis, who shot her cheating lover dead, knew.

In a world of easy access to sex and internet porn, have the intimacies of desire and ecstasy been lost?

Purity and Desire is a daring performance of a work in development that explores the song cycles: Dichterliebe by Robert Schumann and Wesendonck Lieder by Richard Wagner.

Opera star Marie Angel and international director Robert Chevara invite you on a journey where roles are interchangeable and genders are reversed or even obliterated.

Photos by Marcin Noga