Organization

Martijn Dendievel

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Conductor

Stage director

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Singer

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Tenor

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Mezzosopran

Philippe Quesne

German

Das Lied von der Erde -  (The Song of the Earth)

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Das Lied von der Erde Mahler

Public

The Song of the Earth

Approved

Empty chairs in the desert - became a meaningful image for the 2020 festival. The central in-house production Das Lied von der Erde had to be postponed to 2021. In her questions, she is more up-to-date than ever. Can we now listen carefully to the earth, not just monopolize it? Based on Gustav Mahler's symphonic song cycle, the French director and stage designer Philippe Quesne examines the connection between man and nature in his music theater production in terms of its dangers and possibilities. On the threshold from melancholy to utopia, it is the earth that keeps our sensitivity, desires and creative potential alive. Quesne combines an intensive examination of the living itself with fine visual poetry and thereby updates the contemplative descriptions of nature, on which Mahler's composition is based. Written in 1908 in a South Tyrolean mountain village, the six-song cycle is based on ancient Chinese poetry. "But you, man, how long do you live?" The renowned Klangforum Wien presents Das Lied von der Erde in the chamber music version by the composer Reinbert de Leeuw, who died in 2020. In the spirit of Schönberg, the musical reduction elicits an intimate melancholy from Mahler's work. The picture of empty chairs in the desert became a meaningful image for the 2020 Wiener Festwochen. Das Lied von der Erde is one of the festival's main in-house productions and, like many others, it had to be postponed to 2021. Yet the issues it raises remain more topical than ever. Are we now able to listen more attentively to the Earth, rather than simply occupy it? With his music theater production,

With Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, the French scenographer and director Philippe Quesne takes a look at the future of our planet. He mirrors his reflections on the Anthropocene (the era in which our planet must bear the consequences of human activity) on Mahler’s glorious, six-part song cycle. The result is powerful staging, a visual and visionary update of Mahler’s melancholy descriptions of nature. In the most extensive and final part of the cycle, Der Abschied, Quesne even finds the starting point for new utopias. The HERMESensemble performs Das Lied von der Erde in the arrangement for chamber orchestra by Reinbert de Leeuw. Their arrangement, in which Mahler’s musical lines and details sound out more sharply and intensely than ever before, is a masterpiece in itself. Moreover, in the context of Quesne's future scenarios, the abrasive tones sound like a resistance against the threatened mass-extinction.

English

The Song of the Earth by Gustav Mahler, From (2022/2022), Directed by Philippe Quesne,, Conductor Martijn Dendievel

Credits (Cast & Crew)

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