Das Opfer ("The Rite of Spring")

Igor Strawinskys "The Rite of Spring"

Igor Stravinsky composed "The Rite of Spring" between 1911 and 1913 for the "Ballets russes". The opening in Paris in 1913 gave rise to a scandal. The reason was the till then unheard of artistic application of brutality and power to the musical, and of the primitive to the realm of dance. But that alone could not have been the cause for discontent. One year before the outbreak of the first world war, there was a general feeling that the long period of peace of the "Belle Epoque" could soon experience a brutal, eruptive and barbaric ending.

Still today - nearing the end of this ultimately brutal twentieth century and likewise after a long period of peace in Europe, the signs are ever increasing that uncontrolled outbreaks of violence - also in Europe, are multiplying. "The butcher doesn't content himself with economical killing. He wants to feel what he does. For this reason he tortures and mutilates his victims. He kills in mass. Violence holds as proof of his affiliations. - The sense of the excess is the act itself, the blood bath. The killers rile themselves up mutually to the kill." (Wolfgang Sofsky in "Die Zeit" ("Time") 15/98)

Stravinsky has described in "The Rite of Spring" this exact ritualistic process of the "blood victim". "…one day I was overcome by the vision of a great heathen ceremony: all kinds of men were sitting
in a circle and watched the death dance of a young girl who was about to be sacrificed…" The theme is unfortunately still, or again, current. It was essential to find its relevance to our times.

Actors/Dancers/Musicians: Ariane Brandt, Clemente Fernandez, Mirko Girmann, Kerstin Hoerner, Gudrun Lange, C.Moritz Moeller, Maura Morales, Francisco J.Orjales-Morante, Osia Toptsi, Mathias Weiland, Michael Zischang.

Collaborators: Oliver Eltinger, Jaqueline Fischer, Caterina Di Fiore, Julia Galinke, Udo Lensing, Ernst Merheim, Thomas Neuhaus, Michael Scheibenreiter, Joachim Schloemer.