Oehring's antarctic tempest raises a storm in Basel(August 2006) “The Theater Basel managed to stage a coup with UNSICHTBAR LAND.” So the Basler Zeitung summed up Helmut Oehring’s acclaimed new stagework. Though the composer has explored many facets of music theatre, opera and dance over the past decade, the new stagework (translated as Invisible Land) can be counted his most ambitious to date, with its fusing of Shakespeare and Shackleton, early music and contemporary experimentalism.
“It is a great mixture of Baroque sounds, modernism, fin-de-siècle aesthetics and images from the polar sea – a revue with hard cuts between scenes and sounds as well as sophisticated transitions that only opera – among all art forms – can offer.” Basler Zeitung “Helmut Oehring has tackled a big subject: he combines Shakespeare’s last drama, The Tempest, together with diary reports of the English polar explorer Shackleton from his catastrophically failed expedition to Antarctica … Numerous layers are piled on top of each other, as regards the music, the narrative, the stage… Oehring organises the overall form into seven seamlessly connected ‘days’ in accordance with Shackleton’s counting of the days in his diary…” Neue Zürcher Zeitung “Excerpts from Purcell’s stage works provide the second layer for Oehring’s score: the symphony orchestra sits in the pit while the Baroque ensemble plays on stage level, albeit tuned in a Baroque temperament a half tone lower. Initially, sections of the different styles follow in succession. Increasingly, though, they overlap and penetrate each other until musical picture puzzles are formed…” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung “Voices emerge seemingly from nowhere. The choir sings quietly lamenting chords, slowly gathering in strength …Immediately, there it is, the cool shimmering atmosphere that penetrates the soul and keeps you on the edge of your seat for almost two hours.” Die Welt > Further information on Work: UNSICHTBAR LAND Photo: Theater Basel > News Search |
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