Ballet: The Seasons - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Ballet: The Seasons
Musical direction
Christoph Altstaedt
Composer
Joseph Haydn
Text
Gottfried van Swieten after James Thomson's »The Seasons«
Choreography
Martin Schläpfer
Stage and costumes
Mylla Ek
Light
Thomas Diek
Choir rehearsal
Erwin Ortner
Hanne (soprano)
Ileana Tonca
Lukas (tenor)
Josh Lovell
Simon (bass)
Martin Häßler
Choir
Arnold Schoenberg Choir
Contents
A walk through the year as a metaphor of life! With "The Seasons" the aged Joseph Haydn composed a great secular oratorio about the integration of man into the cycle of nature - a music full of colour, full of splendor and great rhetorical force, as a reviewer did on May 2nd, 1801 after the Vienna premiere in the Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung remarked: “Sometimes the melody of the song is enchanting, sometimes it is shaking like a forest torrent that breaks through all dams, the powerful intervention of all instruments; now the simple, artless expression delights, now one admires the extravagant opulence in quick and bright chords. From the beginning to the end, the mind is involuntarily carried away from the most touching to the most terrible, from the most naive to the most artificial, from the most beautiful to the most sublime.« Scenes from the full life stand next to gripping musical descriptions of nature, catchy melodies next to thoughtful reflections on life and its transience, great ones Oratorio scenes alongside folksy Singspiel full of wit, but also rough humour.
For the director of the Vienna State Ballet, Martin Schläpfer, the idea of being inspired by Haydn's "The Seasons" to create a full-length dance piece goes back to the early 1990s, when he was still at the beginning of his career as a choreographer. More than 25 years later he brings them to the stage - with the Vienna State Ballet, soloists of the singer ensemble, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir and the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera under the musical direction of Adam Fischer, alternating with Jendrik Springer.
The Swedish artist Mylla Ek assisted Martin Schläpfer in designing the stage and costumes. From the shell of a sea snail, she has abstracted a stage space that changes according to the seasons, can be narrow, cold and dark or large, warm and bright - a place where Martin Schläpfer unfolds his dance images to Haydn's composition: images of People are kept in their microcosm, but also exposed in the vastness of the universe.
Subject to change.
Christoph Altstaedt
Composer
Joseph Haydn
Text
Gottfried van Swieten after James Thomson's »The Seasons«
Choreography
Martin Schläpfer
Stage and costumes
Mylla Ek
Light
Thomas Diek
Choir rehearsal
Erwin Ortner
Hanne (soprano)
Ileana Tonca
Lukas (tenor)
Josh Lovell
Simon (bass)
Martin Häßler
Choir
Arnold Schoenberg Choir
Contents
A walk through the year as a metaphor of life! With "The Seasons" the aged Joseph Haydn composed a great secular oratorio about the integration of man into the cycle of nature - a music full of colour, full of splendor and great rhetorical force, as a reviewer did on May 2nd, 1801 after the Vienna premiere in the Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung remarked: “Sometimes the melody of the song is enchanting, sometimes it is shaking like a forest torrent that breaks through all dams, the powerful intervention of all instruments; now the simple, artless expression delights, now one admires the extravagant opulence in quick and bright chords. From the beginning to the end, the mind is involuntarily carried away from the most touching to the most terrible, from the most naive to the most artificial, from the most beautiful to the most sublime.« Scenes from the full life stand next to gripping musical descriptions of nature, catchy melodies next to thoughtful reflections on life and its transience, great ones Oratorio scenes alongside folksy Singspiel full of wit, but also rough humour.
For the director of the Vienna State Ballet, Martin Schläpfer, the idea of being inspired by Haydn's "The Seasons" to create a full-length dance piece goes back to the early 1990s, when he was still at the beginning of his career as a choreographer. More than 25 years later he brings them to the stage - with the Vienna State Ballet, soloists of the singer ensemble, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir and the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera under the musical direction of Adam Fischer, alternating with Jendrik Springer.
The Swedish artist Mylla Ek assisted Martin Schläpfer in designing the stage and costumes. From the shell of a sea snail, she has abstracted a stage space that changes according to the seasons, can be narrow, cold and dark or large, warm and bright - a place where Martin Schläpfer unfolds his dance images to Haydn's composition: images of People are kept in their microcosm, but also exposed in the vastness of the universe.
Subject to change.
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