Wiener Festwochen 2011: Diebe - Thieves

Wiener Festwochen 2011

Wüstenbuch
Music drama / Basel, Vienna / Austrian Première

Date: Jun 16 to 18, 19:30;
18:30: Introduction at the lobby of Hall E+G (free admission)
Venue: Halle E
In German, Latin and Spanish

Christoph Marthaler directed the world premiere of Wüstenbuch, the latest work for the stage of Austrian composer Beat Furrer.

The desert is an alien place, a memoryless metaphor of death and nothingness - and thus also a place where the new can emerge. In Wüstenbuch, the narrative of a journey to the desert is composed of several text layers: scenes from Ingeborg Bachmann\'s eponymous fragment interlock with a text and scenario by Händl Klaus and texts by Lucretius, Machado, Valente, Apuleius and the ancient Egyptian papyrus Berlin 3024, in which an unknown man describes his yearning for death. As spoken texts, the fragments are part of the score that sometimes blend with the sound of the music and then again form text islands whose effect derives from the sound of the variously pronounced words. Beat Furrer\'s fascinating musical-dramatic journey is given a congenial interpretation by Christoph Marthaler\'s visual language. A hotel somewhere, a temporary, albeit makeshift, home for its guests. We watch them and their attempts to establish contact, to find some human warmth, only to be frustrated time and again.

Libretto by the composer based on texts by Händl Klaus, Ingeborg Bachmann, Antonio Machado, José Angel Valente, Apuleius, Lucretius and Papyrus Berlin 3024, translated by Jan Assmann

Cast
Conductor: Beat Furrer / Director: Christoph Marthaler
A co-production of: Theater Basel and MaerzMusik, Berliner Festspiele and Wiener Festwochen.

www.festwochen.at