Lincoln Center Festival 2008, in association with Park Avenue Armory presented an epic production of Bernd Zimmerman’s opera Die Soldaten in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, where movable seating on railway tracks enabled the audience to experience extremes of intimacy and overwhelming all-enveloping sound. Originally produced at the RuhrTriennale, Die Soldaten is a deeply engrossing and unsettling piece by a 20th century composer scarred by World War II which exposes the consequences of war and an innocent young woman’s slide into desperation and despair. The opera was performed for five nights to a sold-out audience of almost 1,000.