Mozart’s first operatic masterpiece returns to the Met in the classic Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production, conducted by Music Director Emeritus James Levine. The superb ensemble includes Matthew Polenzani as the king torn by a rash vow; mezzo-soprano Alice Coote in the trouser role of his noble son Idamante; soprano Nadine Sierra as Ilia; and soprano Elza van den Heever as the volatile Elettra, who loves Idamante to the bounds of madness.

The opera is set on the island of Crete in the aftermath of the Trojan War. The tales of this time have provided fertile grounds for creators of opera, from Monteverdi (Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, 1640) to Berlioz (Les Troyens, 1863), to Richard Strauss (Die Ägyptische Helena, 1928), to Martin David Levy (Mourning Becomes Electra, 1967). The era is evocative, reflecting the confusion of a post-traumatic historical moment.

Graf Öderland

A street ballad in twelve scenes by Max Frisch

A co-production of Theater Basel (artistic directorship of Andreas Beck, proxy Almut Wagner) and Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel/Residenztheater (Munich)

Premiere 14 February 2020 (Basel)

Stefan Bachmann stages Frisch’s drama as a highly musical horror trip with powerful imagery, giving full scope to the suggestive power of the theatre.

 

A bank clerk bludgeons a janitor to death: with no reason, no motive, just like that. This murderer and his “senseless” deed totally derail the general prosecutor whose job it is to bring the charge. In a mad rush, he leaves his well-ordered existence and becomes an axe-wielding murderer, initiating a bloody movement against the socio-political status quo. Stefan Bachmann takes the subtitle of this “street ballad” at face value. The multifaceted live music, a cast who are clearly going all out and Olaf Altmann’s congenial spatial positing create a nightmarish maelstrom that sees the story of “Count Oederland with the axe in his hand” as timeless while at the same time evoking countless highly topical associations.

Theatertreffen-juror Sabine Leucht about the production
A general prosecutor is catapulted from his bourgeois existence by an unfathomable case: An upright bank clerk has committed murder with no other motive than an internal feeling of unrest, which will go on to have ever more turbulent repercussions in Max Frisch’s “Graf Öderland (Count Oederland)”. Among Frisch’s oeuvre, this “street ballad in twelve scenes” is the play most open to interpretation. Fragmented and full of abrupt twists, it was quickly rejected by the theatres and loved by its author like a problem child.

The year is 2025, the future has begun – and it’s quite a dark future. Europe is shattered by wars, resources are growing scarce and the climate is getting hotter and hotter. Greenland has broken free from Denmark and, thanks to global warming, has become a new El Dorado. The melting icecaps at the North Pole have uncovered vast deposits of Uranium, rare minerals, gas, and oil which have awakened the interests of international consortia, claims of ownership from and rivalries between several countries and the greed of anonymous large-scale investors. The »Arctic Serenity« sets sail from Copenhagen: a former cruise ship which suffered a terrible collision on her maiden voyage ten years ago in which environmental activist Mariane Thuring, who was on board as a singer in the ship’s band, died. The ship is now supposed to be towed to Nuuk in Greenland where she is to be converted into a luxury hotel. She contains six stowaways who have each been lured there by an anonymous letter. They all want to flee Europe to the north; and they are all, in very different ways, embroiled in Greenland’s independence from Denmark which ultimately involved selling off national resources, creating poverty and a new dependence for the island, and which was supposed to be celebrated on the maiden voyage of the »Arctic Serenity« before the catastrophe took place. As the boat arrives on the high seas, the tugboat suddenly and entirely unexpectedly cuts the »Arctic Serenity« loose and she is left drifting aimlessly with her stowaways in international waters. Accompanied by the ghostly sounds of the ship’s band, sudden twists, unexpected revelations, mutual accusations, machinations and arbitrarily shifting alliances amongst the passengers inexorably push the plot towards disaster in the Arctic Ocean.
Anne-Cécile Vandalem (*1979, Liège) studied acting at the Conservatoire de Liège. Since 2008 she has been producing her plays together with her company »Das Fräulein«. Her previous work "Tristesses" was presented at FIND 2017. In "ARCTIQUE" she once more combines theatre with live music and video and, employing a biting humour, mixes elements of crime drama, grotesque dystopia, political thriller and absurd comedy to tell of a dark future.

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