WAR REQUIEM opera

WAR REQUIEM
a scenic version of Benjamin Brittens Oratory
Oper Graz
WORLD PREMIERE September 2022
Conductor                                                                                                        Roland Kluttig
Conductor Chamber Orchestra                                                                         Johannes Braun

Director                                                                                                          Lorenzo Fioroni
Choreography                                                                                                    Beate Vollack
Stage                                                                                                         Sebastian Hannak
Costumes                                                                                                        Annette Braun
Lighting                                                                                                     Sebastian Alphons
Video                                                                                                  Christian Weißenberger
Dramaturgy                                                                                  Marlene Hahn/ Bernd Krispin
Choir & Extra Choir                                                                                  Bernhard Schneider
Singing school                                                                                              Andrea Fournier
Soprano                                                                                                           Flurina Stucki
Tenor                                                                                                    Matthias Koziorowski
Baritone                                                                                                           Markus Butter

WAR REQUIEM is this season´s opening project at Oper Graz, a rarely staged scenic performance of Britten's Oratory. Performing Britten's WAR REQUIEM is in itself a challenge, with its two Orchestras, huge choruses and three soloists to coordinate, so for this special project I conceived a spacial approach that interweaves the scene with the auditorium by extending the scenography into the parquet. Opening the theatre to an audience onstage, this exuberant evening is conceived as an offer for an experience from most different viewpoints. This scenography enables a spatial and sound experience as part of the overall experience, and the tilted scenery opening up into the auditorium allows art and reality to approach each other as closely as possible in Lorenzo Fioroni's fine staging. The interweaving of the two festive architectures - the scenography resembles an opera ball - makes this transcending spacial experience possible; seats for the audience are created on the stage, and the performance expands into the auditorium.
Like a spline, Britten drives a new reality into the musical structure of the commemoration of the dead, using Owen's wonderful poems to repeatedly intersect the two soldiers' wartime impressions with the form of the Requiem.
"Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world, For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left, Which must die now.
I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled."
The great costumes by Annette Braun, the dramatic yet sensual lighting by Sebastian Alphons, the enigmatic video images by Christian Weißenberger, and the choreography by Beate Vollack and last but not least Lorenzo Fioronis direction make this evening such a profound experience. Many thanks to all involved for this collaboratively created evening of music theatre.
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