SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
BY THOM LUZ AND ENSEMBLE
A smoking car wreck in a nocturnal forest clearing, from whose broken radio “Romantic salon dreams” by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy roar. This musical “crash sculpture“ is meticulously built up in the course of a performance by five sound and illusion experts - shard by shard, sound by sound. In juxtaposition to this slowly unfolding brass catastrophe, an electric chamber music trio expands Mendelssohn's piano cycle “Songs Without Words“, with unexpected noises and reverberations. Thus the end of a road movie becomes the starting point of the new music theater development by Swiss director and stage designer Thom Luz.
„Songs without Words“ is about shock and speechlessness, changes of perspective, destruction and the future, and the necessary reconstruction of the present.
How have we driven ourselves up against the wall? Do we still exist? And what is to be done now? Where words do not suffice, sounds reform themselves. In the interplay of catastrophic images and musical superimpositions, a delicate, meticulously thought-out spatial composition emerges.
With Fhunyue Gao, Mara Miribung, Daniele Pintaudi, Samuel Streiff, Mathias Weibel
Director, Stage Design Thom Luz
Musical Director Mathias Weibel
Dramaturg Kathrin Veser
Costum Designers Tina Bleuler, Katharina Baldauf
Sound Design Martin Hofstetter
Lighting Concept Thom Luz, Tina Bleuler
Technical Director Jens Seiler
Stage Construction, Stage Technician Patrik Riman
Assistant to the Director Ilario Rascher
Communication/Diffusion Ramun Bernetta
Production Manager/Diffusion Gabi Bernetta
Production
Thom Luz and Bernetta Theaterproduktionen
Coproduction
Kaserne Basel, Gessnerallee Zürich, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Wiener Festwochen, Hellerau - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Dresden, Kaserne Basel, Gessnerallee Zürich, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Wiener Festwochen, Hellerau - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Dresden, Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel Hamburg
Language Little language in German/English/French with German subtitles
Duration about 90 minutes
Copyright schaefersphilippen Köln
World Premiere 22. April 2021 Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
With the Support of
Zurich City of culture, Committee of Experts Theatre and Dance BS/BL, Pro Helvetia –Swiss Arts Council, Canton of Zurich, Elisabeth Weber Foundation, Ernst Göhner Foundation