Organization

Admin

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Instrument

Guitarist

David Fennessy

Electric Guitar

Sänger

Mezzosopran

Jennifer Johnston

Mezzo soprano

Dirigat

Jack Sheen

Orchestra

Schauspiel

Brian Ferguson

David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless'

Glasgow

Vereinigtes Königreich

City Halls

David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless': The Conqeust of the Useless Fennessy

Public

The Conquest of the Useless

Pallavi Pawar

Genehmigt

In the early 1980s the German film director Werner Herzog kept a diary of his struggle to make his film Fitzcarraldo in the Amazon. Entitled Conquest of the Useless, its descriptions of nature and Herzog’s day-today battle inspired composer David Fennessy to create an epic threepart work that touches on madness, ambition, Verdi, belief, Enrico Caruso, musical Romanticism and the teeming, chaotic brutality of the jungle.

Fennessy’s Conquest of the Useless moves from an orchestral depiction of Herzog’s original vision – “a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam” – though a four-part choir made up of samples from Caruso’s recordings, to a finale once described by the composer as “Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde put through a blender.”

Part-premiered by the BBC SSO at Glasgow’s first Tectonics festival in 2013, the completed work returns to City Halls for a performance preceded by a discussion with the composer and a screening of Les Blank’s 1982 documentary of the Fitzcarraldo shoot, Burden of Dreams (Cert. 15).

5.30pm Screening of 'Burden of Dreams' (Location: Old Fruitmarket)
7.15pm Herzog’s legacy – A panel discussion, including David Fennessy
8.00pm Conquest of the Useless (Location: City Halls Auditorium)

English

David Fennessy’s 'Conquest of the Useless' by Fennessy, Ab (2023/2023), Dirigat Jack Sheen, City Halls, Glasgow, Vereinigtes Königreich

Aufführungskredite (Besetzung & Produktionsteam )

Besetzung

Instrumentierung

Produktionsteam

Ensemble

Programm, Über & Zusammenfassung

Fotos

Weiterführende Literatur

Aufführungstermine & Spielstätten

Veranstaltungsorte