Offene Wunden
The production ›OPEN WOUNDS‹ with the Ensemble Modern contrasts two Songspiels on one evening: the ›Mahagonny-Songspiel‹ by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and the new composition ›Die WUNDE Heine‹ by Helmut Oehring.
›Die WUNDE Heine‹ is based on poems by Heinrich Heine, which are disturbingly up to date. One hundred years before ›Mahagonny-Songspiel‹ was written, these poems were already prophesying »the End of the Art-Period« and the emergence of a new kind of art. The zeitgeist of Weill's Music is thus emphasized and a bridge built to the present, where the search for new forms and possibilities once again becomes important.
›Die WUNDE Heine‹ is meant to be seen as a continuation of the Brecht/Weill Mahagonny-Songspiel idea in a contemporary context, not only on the level of content, but also through its instrumentation, vocal line-up, working approach and form – Oehring himself describes his composition as a ›response music‹ to the ›Mahagonny-Songspiel‹. A two-part video by Hagen Klennert, containing both graphic and real elements, is part of the stage design and forms a visual clamp between the songspiels.
An Ensemble Modern production in colloboration with the Frankfurt Opera, the Kurt Weill Festival Dessau / Anhaltisches Theater Dessau and MusikTriennale Cologne.
Commissioned by Ensemble Modern, Frankfurt Opera, the Kurt Weill Festival Dessau and MusikTriennale Cologne.
