A dance to Mozart’s Requiem and the concentration-camp Kaiser? Hmmm…
balletNot sure at all about this upcoming Vienna premiere. Would you say it’s appropriate?
In KaiserRequiem, Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis merges with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem to create a musico-dramatic dance evening. It is a dialogue between two works about the great questions of human existence, but also a collaboration between all the sections of the Volksoper Wien: the dancers of the Vienna State Ballet, soloists and the chorus and orchestra of the Volksoper, directed and choreographed by Andreas Heise. With KaiserRequiem, Omer Meir Wellber, who is also conducting the piece, has created an unusual combination of Ullmann’s almost sixty-minute chamber opera with perhaps the most famous torso in music history: Mozart’s musical legacy, the Requiem in D minor KV 626….
The second performance of the premiere series will take place on the occasion of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust and Mozart’s birthday on 27 January 2025.
Unless Omer Meir Wellber is trying to pull a Max Bialystock, which I sincerely doubt, I’m sure that in the immortal words of Cupid Stunt (Kenny Everett RIP), it will all be done in the best possible taste.
In the hands of Lotte de Beer, nothing can be counted-on at Volksoper unless there is an easy route to turning it into a feminist manifesto.
One need look no farther than „La rondine“ which changed the ending and added 15 minutes of orchestral Puccini and mine while huge titles filled the stage telling us of Magda and Lisette running away to great success in a world in which they no longer need men; „Carmen“ existing only as an outsider in a male-dominated world out to exploit her doom; a beyond-abysmal „Die Dreigoschenoper“ with a female Mackie Messer and whores and thieves of every possible gender; „Cabaret“ again with Emcee played by a women. Original texts were not altered to reflect gender changes, so I guess Mackie is a lesbian, just what Brecht wanted.
And the idiot wiener critics keep showering her with praise.
You won’t find me there again until de Beer is gone and the productions from her Intendanz tossed on the trash heap.
Well, in our brave new post-modern, post-truth and post-decency world everything is converted into some sort of hypocricy-stinking propaganda.
Oh no, Viennese critics aren’t all dumb, but all of them are aware of her powerful and rich friend plus the influential friends of this friend, and they simply don’t feel the need to endanger whatever career they might have in a post Lotte future …