Due to a village's inability to take a decision in a life-threatening situation for all the inhabitants, a woman makes a pact with the devil. Not being able to pay her part of the deal, he turns her into a spider that brings the plague to the village. When the spider is finally banned through great sacrifice, she is not gone forever. Caught in a hollow beam of one of the farm houses, whoever pulls out the peg releases her again. The peaceful life, one could interpret, is always in plain view of the horrors that might destroy it again.

Gotthelf's novella Die schwarze Spinne / The Black Spider (1842) can almost be seen as a Swiss myth. Since the 1930s, it has been adapted for the music theater with very different aims as to the propagated self-image of Switzerland.

Leo Dick: composition, stage direction
Anne-May Krüger: voice, dramaturgy, libretto

Premiere: September 2026, Theater Orchester Biel Solothurn/CH