|
The opera wasn’t performed again until exactly 20 years after its creation, and promised action theatre in the most literal sense of the term. The “Stadthalle Freiburg” was chosen as the venue for the performance since it accommodated the work’s colossal images and tones and allowed for the audience to be integrated into the plot. The choir remained distributed throughout the hall during the evening, singing and moving the audience, the “manipulable crowd”, who were seated on wheeled ramps, right through the centre of the warfare. Only the orchestra, under the wand of Karen Kamensek, remained in its fixed place.
In this way, it was possible to visualise the causes and effects of the civil war in an associative progression of haunting and mysterious images and at the same time challenge the myth of heroism. The story revolves around two heroes whose characteristics appear superhuman in historical memory: Abraham Lincoln and Garibaldi. In four scenes, the dreams of these heroes, as well as their actual experiences, are reflected on. The core faith in one’s ability to make the world a better place is shattered by the constant defeats, the horror of the battlefield and death. “A tree is best measured when it is down,” so goes the old American proverb chosen by dramatist and director Robert Wilson as the subtitle for his mammoth project, the CIVIL warS.
<< back >> next page
|
