Lovers’ Chorus

A couple wakes up at home in the middle of the night. “I can’t breathe,” the woman says. “She can’t breathe,” the man repeats. They hurry to the car and drive to the hospital. Agonising moments follow: the woman is in critical condition under care, while the man waits in the waiting room, tormented by uncertainty. Eventually life goes on, but what has happened inevitably changes the course of the lovers’ life together.

Lovers’ Chorus captivates from its very first lines. Written and directed by the Portuguese artist Tiago Rodrigues, the work takes the audience to the heart of a relationship between two people. It is a choral play, a lyrical account: the couple describe, in two speaking voices, a situation in which one of them comes close to death. The two versions told side by side differ slightly. The lives and memories of two people intertwine in two monologues that at times become dialogue, converge and then drift apart again.

Lovers’ Chorus celebrates love, vitality and the exceptionally strong bond between two people in a situation where the continuation of life hangs by a thread. The work is presented in Espoo, directed by Tiago Rodrigues himself. The assistant director is &’s artistic director, Jussi Sorjanen. Alma Pöysti and Elmer Bäck dazzle on stage.

&’s Lovers’ Chorus is the fourth time Rodrigues has directed this work, originally titled Coro Dos Amantes. Originally created in Portugal in 2007, the work has since had its own language versions in France (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, 2021), Greece (Onassis Stegi, 2024) and in Catalan in Spain (Teatre Lliure 2025).