EIN ERMORDETER AUS WARSCHAU

Political music theater by star author Max Czollek, the enfant terrible of contemporary music and the celebrated Berlin opera company Novoflot

In 1947 Arnold Schönberg wrote the melodrama ‘A Survivor from Warsaw’ for narrator, male chorus and orchestra about the suppression of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The composition is a shattering testament to dehumanisation in its most brutal form and one of the few musical works explicitly devoted to the theme of the Holocaust. 75 years after its world premiere and as one element of their multi-part Schönberg project (‘Die Harmonielehre’), the Berlin opera company Novoflot will undertake to overwrite the piece in the context of scenes of war and displacement both past and present. The libretto for this remarkable world premiere comes from the Berlin writer Max Czollek, whose publications (including ‘’De-Integrate’ and ‘Theatre of Reconciliation’) have repeatedly set off far-reaching social debates. The composer is Michael Wertmüller, the enfant terrible of international contemporary music and an artist who has been closely associated with Novoflot’s work for many years. ‘Ein Ermordeter aus Warschau’ is a piece of hybrid music theatre that repeatedly shifts direction between an opera, performance, installation, jazz gig and concert. As well as the British vocalist Rosemary Hardy, Israeli alto Noa Frenkel and Japanese dancer Ichi Go, the librettist Max Czollek will also perform live.