Amerika

Director Baumgarten had Christina Schmitt and video artist Robi Voigt build an analog-digital cabinet of curiosities for fast image changes and transitions – FAZ

The lighting direction and the use of cinematic elements are quite outstanding, which translate the labyrinthine nature of the novel very impressively in visual terms – BR klassik

Nightmare scenarios with the impression of expressionist silent film backdrops, perfectly composed from real stage constructions and sophisticated light and video projections. – NZZ

Brilliant video projections by Robi Voigt – oper aktuell

The stage itself becomes a projection surface for an audiovisual totaltheater. – NZZ

Bravissimi!!! – SZ

Virtuoso blending of video projections and real stage performances – NZZ

The composer Roman Haubenstock-Ramati is someone who has almost disappeared from the world of music. The musician of Polish-Israeli descent, who died in 1994, lived in Vienna as a music editor and composition teacher after Kafkaesque periods of flight and exile. His main work is a music theater based on Kafka’s Amerika, which premiered in Berlin in 1966 and enjoys legendary status. The work has only been performed twice since its premiere, but as a bold musical theater design it is nevertheless one of the milestones of opera composition in the 20th century. Amerika combines compositional precision with a great freedom of form. Haubenstock-Ramati combines the stages of the Kafka novel into breathtaking mobiles of sound, image, action and light, with the auditorium also being integrated into the performance through sound projections.

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Oper in zwei Teilen von Roman Haubenstock-Ramati (1919-1994)
nach dem gleichnamigen Roman von Franz Kafka
Libretto von Roman Haubenstock-Ramati

PREMIERE: 3.3.2024 / Opernhaus Zürich

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Musikalische Leitung: Gabriel Feltz

Inszenierung: Sebastian Baumgarten

Ausstattung: Christina Schmitt

Choreografie: Takao Baba

Lichtgestaltung: Elfried Roller

Video: Robi Voigt

Klangregie: Oleg Surgutschow 

Sounddesign: Raphael Paciorek 

Dramaturgie: Claus Spahn

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Fotos: (c) Herwig Pramme