Berlin, 30.5.2023 – 20:00 h
BKA-Theater, Mehringdamm 34, 10961 Berlin
Unerhörte Musik
Tiziana Scandaletti, Soprano
Riccardo Piacentini, Piano
Luca Lombardi Ophelia-Fragmente (1982)
(Text: Heiner Müller)
For Voice and piano
Live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/AgsqH7D33kU?feature=share
“ … Lombardis Stück ist ein hochdramatisches Werk über die Figur der Ophelia, die von Heiner Müller aufgegriffen wurde, mit einer beeindruckenden Mischung aus Einfachheit und Komplexität…“
“… Lombardi’s piece is a highly dramatic work about the character of Ophelia, which was taken up by Heiner Müller, with an impressive mixture of simplicity and complexity…”
“The realistic artist does not avoid ugliness… But he does not stop there either. He overcomes ugliness in two respects: First, through the beauty of his representation (which has nothing to do with glossing over or palliation), and, secondly, by showing ugliness as a social phenomenon.”
These sentences by Bertolt Brecht seem to me well-suited to explain my reasons for setting two fragments from the Hamletmaschine by Heiner Müller (whom I consider one of the most important writers of our time). For I think that only by facing reality (which, at the moment, is hopeless) with open eyes, by not covering it with a well-meaning aesthetic patina—only then can we hold on to what is most important, namely hope.
[Luca Lombardi, 1982]