Perfume Genius & Kate Wallich: The Lesson

The Lesson is a raw live music and dance performance inspired by The Piano Teacher, Elfriede Jelinek’s notorious novel, adapted by Michael Haneke.

The Lesson examines what happens when desire has nowhere to go, and what we rehearse when we practise 'good behaviour'. It moves through repression, longing, authority and submission in unstable scenes where roles shift and the unsaid becomes manically physical.

Perfume Genius (Mike Hadreas) has spoken about his love of The Piano Teacher: its intense, clinical bleakness and its capacity to be both unsettlingly comic and tragic—qualities that echo through The Lesson.

Following their acclaimed 2019 performance collaboration The Sun Still Burns Here, Hadreas reunites with Wallich alongside his husband and musical partner, Alan Wyffels, and longtime collaborator Tate Justus.








Produced by the Barbican in association with Parallel Lines.

The Lesson was commissioned by Seattle Theatre Group and the STG Performing Arts Series, with additional commissioning and development support from REDCAT, Liquid Music/Northrop, MASS MoCA, and WIP LA.





Performers & credits