Organization

Singer

Contralto

Noa Frenkel

Frau Ocholowska

Baritone

Leigh Melrose

Cholawicki

Soprano

Hendrickje Van Kerckhove

Maja

Tenor

Benjamin Hulett

Leszczuk

Countertenor

Jochen Kowalski

Fürst Holszanski

Bass

Manfred Hemm

Skolinski

Conductor

Johannes Kalitzke

Stage director

Kasper Holten

Set designer

Steffen Aarfing

Costume designer

Marie í Dali

Lighting designer

Jesper Kongshaug

MusikTheater an der Wien

Others

Klangforum Wien

German

Die Besessenen

Vienna

Austria

Theater an der Wien

Approved

DIE BESESSENEN Johannes Kalitzke

Desert figures, blazing passion, greed for money, an ominous towel and finally a murder: With these ingredients the Polish author Witold Gombrowicz enriched his serial novel The Possessed , which he wrote in 1939 for the Polish newspapers Morgen-Express and Roter Kurier . The novel was thought to be lost due to the war for decades before it was rediscovered in 1967 and translated into many languages. Now the German writer Christoph Klimke has condensed Gombrowicz's model for his libretto dramatization and concentrated on individual storylines.

The egocentric, young and beautiful Maja is engaged to Cholawicki, the supposed heir of an old, run-down castle, but rich in art treasures. He should make her wealthy with his inheritance and at the same time save her mother from bankruptcy. However, the material plans are thwarted by Leszczuk, a young (tennis) player with whom Maja falls in love. Both are unscrupulous egotists, complicit
the self-destruction of society, which is marked by morbid decline. The only one who is really committed to the future and the preservation of the country's culture is the art historian Skolinski, who examines the collection in the castle. Obsessed not only with property, but also with his missing son, however, is the old prince and lord of the castle. The possessed end up in destruction - in the end all that's left is disillusionment.

The music of the possessedis based on the relationship between the different times represented by the people in the play, in which they live and to whom they feel they belong, and on the image of this strange ghost figure, the towel, which throws the people of this story into confusion. Elements of early music and commercial media combine with the composer Johannes Kalitzke's own tonal language to form a fabric of structural relationships, which in the course of the piece form into one like the folds of a cloth, a fan that slowly closes and leaves an image-free axis Center condensed, which soaks everything up in itself.

English

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew