View transcript: History of Humankind as Dark Art

History of humankind

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PRIME TIME. Late edition

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At the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Heiner Goebbels put on his fascinating opera LANDSCAPE WITH DISTANT RELATIVES with the ENSEMBLE MODERN / It’s all about “astonishing moving sound impressions” (FAZ) / The topic: HISTORY OF HUMANKIND AS DARK ART

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HISTORY OF HUMANKIND AS DARK ART / An anti-authoritarian opera by Heiner Goebbels

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Scene from: LANDSCAPE WITH DISTANT RELATIVES, 1st act

Chorus on stage

Per cui si ascende dal corpo più denso, quale è la terra, al lem crasso, quale è l’aqua …

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1st act, 1st suite / Giordano Bruno, ABOUT THE INFINITE, THE UNIVERSE AND THE WORLDS

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2nd act, 3rd suite, Dervishes

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3rd act, 4th suite, Triumphal march / Coriolanus / Homme – Bomb

Chorus on stage

Look Actor on stage: There he is now, Chorus on stage: Look Actor on Stage: There is no interrogation in his eyes, Or in the hands, quiet over the horse`s neck, and the eyes watchful,waiting, perceiving, indifferent. Chorus on stage: Now Actor on Stage: They go up to the temple. Chorus on stage: Then Actor on Stage: The sacrifice. Chorus on stage: Now Actor on Stage: Come the virgins bearing urns, urns containing Dust Chorus on stage: Dust Dust of dust, and now …

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David Bennent, actor

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Homme – Bomb

Chorus on stage

Après tuer, les caresses. Qu’il dit, pense le public, mais s’il demeure dans le tuer …

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Henri Micheaux: Liberté d’action

Alexander Kluge

There is a … a sequence, or an image: the orchestra on stage, with the masks.

Heiner Goebbels

We should mention that this image is not my own creation, like many of my images they are not actually made up, but basically inspired by themes from the fine arts. There are motifs, for instance, from Leonardo da Vinci’s, there are motifs from Poussin’s, there is a famous picture by Velasquez, there is the “Company at Table” by Katharina Fritsch that you know from the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt. And the image that you refer to, the orchestra with the masks, that’s a photograph by the Albanian artist Sislej Xhafa that I saw at a museum in New York, and that fascinates me for the same reason that Poussin does, this strange balance of terror and beauty. Which means that there are people sitting there , who have mastered very civilized-cultivated instruments, who nevertheless may imply with the mask that they also know their way around other, more dangerous tools. This kind of balance in the image, this tension in the image is what captured my attention, and that’s when I wrote this music that tries to allow for those two nuances as well. I remember, for instance, that on the day of the second performance, which was in late October in Geneva, there was this hostage situation at the musical theater in Moscow. And you could see on television that those Chechen rebels took the stage with those masks and forced the actors and the audience into the orchestra pit. And I thought, I thought spontaneously: O God, now this image has lost its strange ambiguity, and I can’t … I wanted to go back and remove the image spontaneously. And a few minutes later, there was a report in the same feature about the task force, the Russian task force that already practiced for the rescue mission, to rescue the hostages. And they were shown doing some excercices, entering buildings, and of course they had the same masks, which means: wearing the masks didn’t say anything about the value of what we see, so to speak, and obviously still remains in a wonderful balance with the instruments. That’s why the image stayed. There is a passage by Hannah Arendt that I just found, also in relation to dinner parties, by the way, where she draws a parallel between gangs of thieves and saints and says that those two gangs have indeed something in common. In both cases their attitude towards the world is damaged, so to speak, the latter are too good for this world, the former are too bad for this world, but both have basically ended their relationship with it. And this strange vis-à-vis, that basically always requires the viewer to take a side, but never chooses a side from the perspective of the stage, that’s what interests me in regard to the entire play.

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Heiner Goebbels, composition/direction

Kluge

That is a scene that follows this “Ove è dunque”, isn’t it.

Goebbels

Yes.

Kluge

This “Ove è dunque” passage – “Where did our beautiful order go, this beautiful ladder of nature, which we climb from the densest and most solid matter on Earth to the less dense, from the water to the fine to the finer to the finest” – it appears twice, this passage. It’s the only passage that appears twice, so …

Goebbels

Yes, well … that is a passage by Giordano Bruno, who in his dialogues took after all sometimes this position, sometimes that position. This is a position that he soon gives up again, because in his early texts – no, not in his early texts, but generally in his religious and philosophical position – he said goodbye to the hierarchy of the universe and acknowledged the balance of the opposites. That’s really a key question that I’m interested in not only as a political question, but also as a question regarding theater. So, I’m less and less interested in the hierarchy of theater, and plays that are based on the principle that the text is written first …

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Heiner Goebbels, composition / direction

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GOODBYE TO THE HIERARCHY OF THE UNIVERSE / MANY WORLDS

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Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

Kluge

… so first the rough, and then finer and finer …

Goebbels

… yes, and most importantly, that all the other elements are just there to confirm the one, so to speak, and nothing is negotiated between the elements. That is something that I am interested in anyway, in respect to theater as well – in a way, I’m also interested in unhinging the ladder of theatrical means. The other wonderful thing, that I believe also contributes to the success of such a work, is that the company members take on all these roles themselves and permanently change costumes and move from playing, with great virtuosity, musical instruments in the orchestra pit back to the stage, so to speak, to sing or to dance or to act out another scene. And that is only possible, I think, because the company itself has a structure that is not unlike what we are dealing with here. The Ensemble Modern is a self-managed company, after all, they don’t have a center, nor an art director who tells them: Now you have to rehearse a Goebbels opera, even if it’s hard! No, that is a decision that the company members make together. Every day they sit down at a table, so to speak, in a metaphorical sense, and renegotiate their positions. And this enormous maturity in enduring contradictions and positions, as well as this enormous self-confidence in regard to the group-thinking is something that I believe you can feel when they take on all their roles. Because I believe that it shows, after all, how a play is put on. I also believe that you can see if plays are put on in an authoritarian way, you can see that as well, or you can feel, you can feel it in the suppression of other possibilities, the process that’s behind it.

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Cooperation with the ENSEMBLE MODERN

Actor on stage

Vo hamase ham unase kabhI nA mile, kaise mile dil nA jaanuun, ab kyA karen, kyA naam len, kaise unhe main pukaaruun, C kahanaa hii kyA ye nain jo ek anjaanse jo mile, chalane lage mohabbat ke jaise ye silasile, aramaan naye aise dil men khile, jinako kahhI main nA jaanuun, vo hamase ham unase kabhI nA mile, kaise mile dil nA jaanuun, ab kyA karen, kyA naam len, kaise unhe main pukaaruun

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3rd act, Chant indien

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Kenha hi kya by A.R. Raahman (in hindi)

Goebbels

At first, I already wanted to create a link to the fourth act from the first. Because it is important to me that these very different images have an underlying connection after all. So, for example, the image where the choir at the table in the front, in a Last Supper scene, so to speak, inquires about the order, and inquires about the comparatives, so to speak: whether or not the light rises up towards the heavy on the ladder of nature – of course, that is related to the hillbilly image at the end, where the comparatives play a role for the washed-up cowboys. Because in the West, they say, the handshake is firmer and the smile lasts a bit longer and the snow is whiter and the sun hotter, and that’s why it’s a bit better here at home.

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Heiner Goebbels, composition / direction

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4th act, 7th suite / Freight Train / Emsemble Modern

Actor on stage

Je peux l’arranger moi-même leur pays. De la façon qu’ils s’y prennent, il y a toujours trop de choses qui ne portent pas. Ils se sont donné du mal inutilement, ces New-Yorkais avec leurs gratte-ciels, si faciles à survoler, ces Chinois avec leurs pagodes et leur civilisation de derrière les fagots. Moi, je mets la Chine dans ma cour. Je suis plus à l’aise pour l’observer. Et ils n’essayent pas de me tromper comme ils font chez eux, aidés par leur propagande xénophobe. Ils font chez moi tranquillement leur petit commerce. L’argent passe, et passe. Ça leur suffit, pourvu qu’il passe. Freight train, freight train… Ce n’est pas moi non plus qui irais au Tyrol ou en Suisse, risquer au retour une grève des chemins de fer et des lignes aériennes et de me trouver coincé comme un cencrelat sous une semelle. Pas si fou! Les montagnes, j’en mets quand ça me chante, où ça me chante, où le hasard et des complaisances secrètes m’ont rendu avide de montagnes …

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David Bennent, actor

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HISTORY OF HUMANKIND AS DARK ART / An anti-authoritarian opera by Heiner Goebbels

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composition & direction: Heiner Goebbels / In cooperation with ENSEMBLE MODERN & DEUTSCHER KAMMERCHOR

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PRIME TIME. Late edition.