Following on from Carmen on the lake in Bregenz, doing the world premiere of Daniel Bjarnason's Brothers at Den Jyske Opera in Aarhus is not just a huge honor, but also the perfect antidote: A dark, contemporary, compact and intense piece, which goes straight to the core of the terrifying story without any sentiment. This is an opera about the price we pay for going to war, a story about the difficult coming home, but also about universal human emotions and how much pain we can inflict on others and ourselves. Steffen Aarfing and I have kept the production very simple to allow the intense colors in Daniel's music to come out - and I believe Daniel has written a masterpiece. He will be the next big thing in opera, I swear! The opera is part of the Bier Trilogy, with a new opera, musical and dance piece based on three Susanne Bier movies as part of Kulturby 2017 (European Capital of Culture 2017), and we are proud to start the project with Brothers.