Freud and Dora: a Case of Hysteria is an evening-long opera inspired by Sigmund Freud's most famous - and controversial - case. Set on New Years Eve, 1900 in Vienna, Freud and Dora lasts approximately 110 minutes (in two acts) and requires seven singers, orchestra, a couch, numerous cigars, a giant nose and a chorus called The Reservior of Libido.
The Dora case - a true story that has become central to the always heated debate about the value of Freud's theories - is a tale of love, lust, deception, and betrayal. It contains shameless adultery, seduction, intrigue and madness. In other words, Freud and Dora: a Case of Hysteria has all the classic ingrediants for a farcical yet oddly profound "comedy of genders" in the grand operatic style.
The story is brimming with wonderfully bizarre characters. There are political fanatics, demented syphilitics, wacky nymphomaniacs and compulsive bridge players. There is a mother suffering from "housewife psychosis" and a quack physician who performs painful operations on his patients' noses in order to cure their mental problems.
But the most compelling characters of all, the characters who give the story such unusual resonance and depth, are Dr. Sigmund Freud and his thoroughly hysterical patient, an intelligent and beautiful young woman he called Dora. By focusing on these two exceptional people and their explosive confrontation, the opera combines high purpose and farce to explore a famous turning point in the eternal battle of the sexes: the extraordinary moment when Sigmund Frud met his match, in the form of a beautiful young girl.