Host: Klangforum Wien
Location: Berlin Märzmusik
Venue: Berlin Märzmusik
Type: Music and Arts
Type: Performance
Description: 27., 28. März 2010
Berlin, Märzmusik

Beat Furrer — Wüstenbuch UA

Libretto von Beat Furrer und Händl Klaus

Production: Christoph Marthaler
Stage Design: Anna Viebrock
Dramaturgy: Ute Vollmar

Les Jeunes Solistes
Klangforum Wien

Conductor: Beat Furrer

Desert Book
The desert is a place of strangeness. It is symbol of an inconceivable emptiness; metaphor for death, nothingness and time and again projection space for the fear of losing one’s memory. Many authors have dealt with the phenomenon “desert” in their texts. Ingeborg Bachmann’s “Wüstenbuch-Fragmente” [fragments of a desert book] which form part of her “Todesarten-Projekt” [manners of death project] are impressive examples of their kind. Beat Furrer and Händl Klaus have incorporated them partially into the draft text of their new piece for music theatre. Other important ingredients of the libretto are a new text written by Händl Klaus, as well as poems by Angel Valente, Nazim Hikmet and the ancient Egyptian papyrus 3024 in which an unknown author writes about his longing for death. The papyrus text is used in a new translation by Jan Assmann who collected a great number of texts concerning death and dying in his book “Death and the Afterlife in Egypt” which caused quite a sensation, as an important contribution to the research on the ancient Egyptian’s relationship to death, their simultaneous ritual celebration of death and vital life energy. (Theater Basel)
http://www.fbcal.com/e/284506017259