PAUL ABRAHAM (1892–1960): «DIE BLUME VON HAWAII» (the flower of Hawaii) operetta in three acts (Libretto: Alfred Grünwald, Fritz Löhner-Beda and Emmerich Földes)

Production of Theater Basel, Schauspiel

Premiere (cancelled!): 28th of September 2017, Grosse Bühne, 19.30 h

Further performances: 1. / 7. / 15. / 20. / 23. / 27. / 29. / 31. October, 4. / 18. / 26. November, 8. / 14. December 2017, 7. / 13. /19. January 2018

“Ein Paradies am Meeresstrand” (A paradise on the seashore) and “Will dir die Welt zu Füssen legen” (Will lay the world at your feet) are just two unforgettable evergreens that Paul Abraham composed for his revue operetta “Die Blume von Hawaii”. He and his librettists were inspired by the fate of the last queen of Hawaii, who was disempowered by the Americans and went down in music history as the composer of “Aloha Oe”, to relocate a large part of the plot to an unreachable fantasy location.

Hawaiian nationalists plan to liberate the island from the American occupiers and bring Princess Laya from exile in Paris incognito to marry her off to Prince Lilo-Taro. The American governor, on the other hand, dreams of marrying him to his niece. A champagne-fuelled love merry-go-round begins to spin, with an officer, the governor’s secretary, an entertainer and a young Hawaiian woman also jumping on board. The colourful company ends up in Europe, in sophisticated Monte Carlo, where four couples will get together.

Although the starting point is a political conflict, the creators were primarily concerned with entertainment. They catered to the need for exoticism and romance with aplomb, for the eyes and ears. On the one hand, people indulged in the dream of an idealised South Seas world, but at the same time hoped for a great future, for modernity from America.

Abraham, the “operetta king of Berlin”, a contemporary of Brecht and Weill, whose “Threepenny Opera” is also on the programme this season, had to flee the National Socialist regime two years after the premiere. In his composition he masterfully combines operetta melodies with elements of jazz, which made Berlin pulsate at the time.

Jürg Henneberger and the Ensemble Phoenix Basel, proven specialists in new music, set out together with the singing theatre ensemble in search of a “sound” that on the one hand purifies the lavishly orchestrated score and on the other resurrects the jazzy, playful spirit of the Weimar Republic. Experienced in uncovering the ironic facets of the operetta, director Frank Hilbrich is interested in showing how the unfulfilled longings for the past and future become a failure in the present.

 

Conductor, Fender Rhodes Piano: Jürg Henneberger
Staging: Frank Hilbrich
Musical sssistence, choir direction & assistant conductor (23./27.10./18.11.): Oliver Rudin
Stage: Volker Thiele
Costumes: Gabriele Rupprecht
Choreography: Kinsun Chan
Light: Roland Edrich
Dramaturgy: Almut Wagner

Laya, princess of Hawaii: Pia Händler
Prince Lilo-Taro: Florian Jahr
Kaluna, an old Hawaiian: Andrea Bettini
Captain Reginald Harald Stone: Elias Eilinghoff
Lloyd Harrison, american governor of Hawaii: Mario Fuchs
John Buffy, his secretary: Thomas Reisinger
Bessie Worthington, his niece: Katja Jung
Raka, a joung Hawaiian: Leonie Merlin Young
Jim Boy, a famous american jazz singer: Vincent Glander
Susanne Provence, his partner: Pia Händler
Perroquet, head waitor and bar pianist: Jürg Henneberger / Oliver Rudin

Choir:

Diana Chavarro (soprano)
Alexandra Mira Puertas (soprano)
Julia Schild (soprano)
Aya Tsujimoto (soprano)
Sylvia «Sylphe» Heckendorn (alto)
Francisca Näf (alto)
Anne Maria Schmid (alto)
Angelika Wied (alto)
Alejandro Benavides Urena (tenor)
Tarik Benchekmoumou (tenor)
Adrian Borter (tenor)
Donovan Elliot Smith (tenor)
Thomas Hardegger (bass)
Sebastian Knüsli (bass)
Daniel Raaflaub (bass)
Tianyou Wang (bass)

Ensemble Phoenix Basel:

Christoph Bösch, Anja Clift: flute / piccolo
Toshiko Sakakibara, Dana Barack: clarinet / bass clarinet
Sascha Armbruster, Pablo González: saxophone 1 (alto / baritone)
Kevin Juillerat, Jonas Tschanz: saxophone 2 (tenor)
Jens Bracher, Simon Lilly: trumpet 1
Michael Ferner: trumpet 2
Michael Büttler, Stephen Menotti: trombone
João Pacheco, Daniel Stalder: percussion
Maurizio Grandinetti: guitar / banjo / Hawaii-guitar
Ludovic Van Hellemont, Dominic Chamot: piano / celesta
Mirka Šćepanović, Friedemann Treiber: violin 1
Marzena Toczko, Filip Saffray: violin 2
Susanne Mathe, Daniel Hauptmann: violin 3
Lisa Rieder, Susanne Mathe: violin 4
Jan-Filip Ťupa, Joonas Pitkänen: cello
Aleksander Gabryś, Daniel Sailer: double bass

Walk-in music theater installation between intoxication and ritual

In their first opera production, Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg create a posthumanist “Gesamtkunstwerk”. In doing so, they break down boundaries between man and machine, future and past, theater, visual art and virtual reality. The constantly rotating stage becomes the living space of a new kind of community. It cultivates a hieroglyphic language of movement and seems to live according to its own enigmatic rules. Inspired by the unconventional genius Albert Einstein, Philip Glass created a 20th century musical masterpiece that breaks all the rules of opera and follows no linear narrative structure. Repetitive patterns make time sensually tangible and put the audience into trance. The audience can move freely and experience the work individually.


other artists:

Performance/Dance – Suzan Boogaerdt, Tarren Johnson, Frank Willens, Tommy Cattin, Dominic Santia, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández
Basler Madrigalisten (conductor: Raphael Immoos) – Anna Miklashevich, Viola Molnar, Viviane Hasler (soprano), Barbara Schingnitz, Schoschana Kobelt, Leslie Leon (alto), Patrick Siegrist, Daniel Issa, Christopher Wattam (tenor), Othmar Sturm, Valerio Zanolli, Amir Tiroshi (bass)

Opéra, Grande Halle de La Villette, Paris

Production of Theater Basel in cooperation with the Philharmonie de Paris and Festival d’Automne


further information:

https://philharmoniedeparis.fr/fr/activite/opera/26308-philip-glass-einstein-beach

With breathtaking emotional power, Michael Hersch and Stephanie Fleischmann retell the story of Emperor Nero and his wife Poppaea: the most powerful woman in the world 2000 years ago, a ruthless fight for one’s own goals, the burning of Rome and the end of a world. This opera premiere directed by Markus Bothe ventures on a red-hot journey to the dark side of Monteverdi’s “L’incoronazione di Poppea”. The Basel-based company “Piertzovanis Töws Architekten” turns the stage design into a statement for consciously dealing with the consequences of one’s own actions.

“POPPAEA is an opera about a woman whose desire is limitless; a woman who must endure many things and make her way through a world in which women are systematically silenced. The violence that prevails in this world is extreme. It begs the question: How far have we come? How little have we progressed?”

Michael Hersch / Stephanie Fleischmann

https://zeitraeumebasel.com/produktionen

Daniel Glaus (*1957): «STEINhimmel» (2016/17, WP)

– STEINhimmel I – 42’
– STEINhimmel II “in memoriam” – 37’

1517 and 2017

The Reformation thoughts, taking up the old heretical voices of the mystics and developing them further, led to a political and inner-church upheaval of unimagined dimensions and later influenced the Enlightenment and secularization.

Today, global economic interests are confronted with tendencies of national isolation and radicalizing religious fundamentalism. In between are people. They are lynched, tortured, incapacitated, expelled or, misled by false hopes for a better life, seduced and forced to flee.

Imagine: an overcrowded boat on the stormy Mediterranean Sea at night. Hundreds of people cry out desperately and perhaps silently for help.

Or listen in on the flames of the burning Grenfell Tower in London.

Woe betide if the voices were to become loud and reach our ears unhindered!

Statements of the reformers Oekolampad Basel | Zwingli Zurich | Haller Bern | Farel Lausanne and Luther | the threat of banishment from Rome | Mallarmé “Un Coup de dés” | Freud “Why War” | victims of genocide from Myanmar, 2016 | the holy figures of the “Heavenly Court” in the choir vault of the Bern Cathedral | names of Jewish, Christian and Islamic mystics and the first names of a Swiss school were brought together in the composition process and mixed to form the libretto of the space symphony “STEINhimmel” (STONE heaven).

The church space as an instrument becomes a resonating space, an echoing space, which all those listening, singing, playing make resound through their presence and their devotion and steer, as it were, like Noah’s Ark through the times of the present.

Daniel Glaus

Walk-in music theater installation between intoxication and ritual

In their first opera production, Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg create a posthumanist “Gesamtkunstwerk”. In doing so, they break down boundaries between man and machine, future and past, theater, visual art and virtual reality. The constantly rotating stage becomes the living space of a new kind of community. It cultivates a hieroglyphic language of movement and seems to live according to its own enigmatic rules. Inspired by the unconventional genius Albert Einstein, Philip Glass created a 20th century musical masterpiece that breaks all the rules of opera and follows no linear narrative structure. Repetitive patterns make time sensually tangible and put the audience into trance. The audience can move freely and experience the work individually.


other artists:

Performance/Dance – Suzan Boogaerdt, Tarren Johnson, Frank Willens, Tommy Cattin, Dominic Santia, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández
Basler Madrigalisten (conductor: Raphael Immoos) – Anna Miklashevich, Viola Molnar, Viviane Hasler (soprano), Barbara Schingnitz, Schoschana Kobelt, Leslie Leon (alto), Patrick Siegrist, Daniel Issa, Christopher Wattam (tenor), Othmar Sturm, Valerio Zanolli, Amir Tiroshi (bass)

Production of Theater Basel in cooperation with Berliner Festspiele and Wiener Festwochen


further information:

https://www.theater-basel.ch/de/einsteinonthebeach

Walk-in music theater installation between intoxication and ritual

In their first opera production, Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg create a posthumanist “Gesamtkunstwerk”. In doing so, they break down boundaries between man and machine, future and past, theater, visual art and virtual reality. The constantly rotating stage becomes the living space of a new kind of community. It cultivates a hieroglyphic language of movement and seems to live according to its own enigmatic rules. Inspired by the unconventional genius Albert Einstein, Philip Glass created a 20th century musical masterpiece that breaks all the rules of opera and follows no linear narrative structure. Repetitive patterns make time sensually tangible and put the audience into trance. The audience can move freely and experience the work individually.


other artists:

Performance/Dance – Suzan Boogaerdt, Tarren Johnson, Frank Willens, Tommy Cattin, Dominic Santia, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández
Basler Madrigalisten (conductor: Raphael Immoos) – Anna Miklashevich, Viola Molnar, Viviane Hasler (soprano), Barbara Schingnitz, Schoschana Kobelt, Leslie Leon (alto), Patrick Siegrist, Daniel Issa, Christopher Wattam (tenor), Othmar Sturm, Valerio Zanolli, Amir Tiroshi (bass)

Production of Theater Basel in cooperation with Berliner Festspiele and Wiener Festwochen


further information:

https://www.theater-basel.ch/de/einsteinonthebeach

Walk-in music theater installation between intoxication and ritual

In their first opera production, Susanne Kennedy and Markus Selg create a posthumanist “Gesamtkunstwerk”. In doing so, they break down boundaries between man and machine, future and past, theater, visual art and virtual reality. The constantly rotating stage becomes the living space of a new kind of community. It cultivates a hieroglyphic language of movement and seems to live according to its own enigmatic rules. Inspired by the unconventional genius Albert Einstein, Philip Glass created a 20th century musical masterpiece that breaks all the rules of opera and follows no linear narrative structure. Repetitive patterns make time sensually tangible and put the audience into trance. The audience can move freely and experience the work individually.


other artists:

Performance/Dance – Suzan Boogaerdt, Tarren Johnson, Frank Willens, Tommy Cattin, Dominic Santia, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández
Basler Madrigalisten (conductor: Raphael Immoos) – Anna Miklashevich, Viola Molnar, Viviane Hasler (soprano), Barbara Schingnitz, Schoschana Kobelt, Leslie Leon (alto), Patrick Siegrist, Daniel Issa, Christopher Wattam (tenor), Othmar Sturm, Valerio Zanolli, Amir Tiroshi (bass)

Production of Theater Basel in cooperation with Berliner Festspiele and Wiener Festwochen


further information:

https://www.theater-basel.ch/de/einsteinonthebeach

With breathtaking emotional power, Michael Hersch and Stephanie Fleischmann retell the story of Emperor Nero and his wife Poppaea: the most powerful woman in the world 2000 years ago, a ruthless fight for one’s own goals, the burning of Rome and the end of a world. This opera premiere directed by Markus Bothe ventures on a red-hot journey to the dark side of Monteverdi’s “L’incoronazione di Poppea”. The Basel-based company “Piertzovanis Töws Architekten” turns the stage design into a statement for consciously dealing with the consequences of one’s own actions.

“POPPAEA is an opera about a woman whose desire is limitless; a woman who must endure many things and make her way through a world in which women are systematically silenced. The violence that prevails in this world is extreme. It begs the question: How far have we come? How little have we progressed?”

Michael Hersch / Stephanie Fleischmann

https://www.wienmodern.at/2021-hersch-fleischmann-poppaea-en-2172

We all know it: suddenly a warm wind comes up and dries all the clouds from the sky. The mountains move closer together, everything seems closer, clearer, more beautiful, brighter and the sun shines in its massiveness: postcard magic! The “Föhn” wind has its origin on the northern slopes of our mountains. It is loved and feared, longed for and cursed. It can be felt as far as the border runs in the north of our country, and the Swiss themselves even complain that it afflicts them, tormenting them with headaches, bone aches and pains of the soul. The Föhn belongs to the alpine world and to the alpine countries like the mountains themselves. It is deeply rooted in everyday life and a piece of distinctive identity, bringing sweet magic and devastating devastation. The “Föhn” is an archaic, cyclical weather and drama of the Swiss cultural landscape that has always helped shape its uniqueness. Surprisingly, this theme is rarely found in the world of music and theater, nor as a radio play or in literature, apart from the poignant scene in Schiller’s “William Tell” in the storm on Lake Uri…

Christian Zehnder

Musician and director Christian Zehnder wants to remedy this situation: his interdisciplinary music theater project “Föhn” explores, laments and celebrates this phenomenon that is so quintessentially Swiss. Swiss author Urs Widmer has written especially for this project, the myth of the “Föhn” in the Swiss Alps, which is still unwritten in the alpine cultural landscape.


The “Föhn” woman: Susanne Elmark – coloratura soprano
The narrator: Hansrudolf Twerenbold – speaker
The farmer’s wife: Carina Braunschmidt – actress
The farmer: Martin Hug – actor
The mountain: Christian Zehnder – Submonk singing technique
The weather caller: Christian Zehnder
Noisemaker: Fabian Degen


Mens choir (Einstudierung: Fritz Näf):

Akira Tachikawa: counter tenor
Walter Meier, Daniel Issa, Christian Reichen: tenor
Erwin Schnider, Jean Bernard Arbeit, Othmar Sturm: baritone
Sebastian Mattmüller, Florian Engelhardt: bass


Text: Urs Widmer (1938–2014)
Music: Fortunat Frölich (*1954)
Concept, direction, room concept: Christian Zehnder (*1961)
Co-composition: Christian Zehnder
Choreography: Theresa Rotemberg
Costumes: Karen Feelizitas Petermann
Sound: Amadis Brugnoni
Lighting: Makus Küry