Theatre innovator Susanne Kennedy and visual artist Markus Selg are staging an opera for the very first time. Together they create a futuristic work that blends installation, ritual and theatre. With their distinctive theatrical language, they break down boundaries between humans and machines, reality and simulation, between theatre, the visual arts and virtual worlds. On a continuously rotating stage a new kind of community cultivates an unusual language of movement. It seems to live according to its own, enigmatic rules. Inspired by that unconventional genius Albert Einstein, Philip Glass and Robert Wilson created Einstein on the Beach, a 20th century masterpiece that breaks with all the conventions of opera and refuses to follow a linear narrative structure. Repetitive patterns convey the experience of time as a sensory phenomenon. This entirely reworked version evokes an immersive sense of the present in which the future and the past converge. From trance to utopia: vibrant music theatre as a boundary experience.
- Artistic Team
Concept Susanne Kennedy, Markus Selg Direction Susanne Kennedy Musical direction André de Ridder With music by Philip Glass Stage design Markus Selg Costumes Teresa Vergho Sound design Richard Janssen Video Rodrik Biersteker, Markus Selg Light design Cornelius Hunziker Dramaturgy Meret Kündig Choreographic collaboartion Ixchel Mendoza Hernandez Leiter der musikalischen Abteilung Thomas Wise Piano, Coach Irina Krasnovska, Leonid Maximov Direction assistance Caterina Cianfarini Stage assistance Julia Kraushaar Costumes assistance Karoline Gundermann Stage management Jean-Pierre Bitterli Lighting-, Video management Emilien Calpas Overtitles Riku Rokkanen Sound Cornelius Bohn With Ixchel Mendoza Hernandez, Tarren Johnson, Frank Willens, Suzan Boogaerdt Solo violin Diamanda Dramm Solo soprano Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir Emily Dilewski Solo alto Sonja Koppelhuber, Nadia Catania Dancers Tommy Cattin, Dominic Santia Choir, Orchestra Basler Madrigalisten, Ensemble Phoenix Basel
- Production
Production Theater Basel Cooperation Wiener Festwochen, Berliner Festspiele
Premiere June 2022, Theater Basel