Oratory balbulum – Since when there’s no future? – Süddeutsche.de

Since the end of communism. The “oratorio balbulum” by Peter Eötvös and Péter Esterházy is a wild text and sound swirl over Europe and its end.

Probably Peter Esterhazy would now in Salzburg. But can not he, because he died two weeks ago at the age of 66 years. His “Oratorio balbulum”, set to music by Péter Eötvös, is now in the Grosses Festspielhaus the estate. But who therefore expects solemnity, the Hungarian writer knows bad. A plane full of disastrous event is this quite unspiritual, conducted by Daniel Harding factory, a nihilistic text vertebrae from the years 2010 / 2011. The occurring angel is drunk, since he would like to chat with Friedrich Nietzsche God what mezzosoprano Iris Vermillion with captivating courage represents the smokey-infamous chanteuse. And the actor Peter Simonischek as narrator questioned from the outset the possibility of storytelling itself, as Esterhazy has always done in his novels. The Choir of the Hungarian Radio (directed by Zoltán Pad) do anyway nothing except that he is constantly sing hallelujah

The only thing the Europeans alive, is the fear of social decline.

But hallelujah composed no longer refer to Nietzsche so easily, why Péter Eötvös has borrowed loud Hallelujah from Gregorian chant through Mozart to the Gospel, a postmodern smorgasbord as the text, wilder than others of Esterhazy, each allegation immediately denied again, zerrupft the figures them en passant also scenic elements and gestures demanded, without ever really finding to the theater. Worst gets tenor Topi Lehtipuu as prophets. He stutters because he had too little and too much to say at the same time, is to Notker Balbulus, the stuttering monk from the monastery of St. Gall, who co-invented the European Hallelujah in the 9th century. but Europe is at the end, as fragmented as this oratorio balbulum, the “stuttering Oratorio” which already qua subtitles in “4 fragments” disintegrates. Remains of European history rush in, the outbreak of the First World War, the terror since September 11, 2001. About the future but can not say anything more, because “after the end of Communism has gone out to us the future.” Since the nihilism of form is still to content. The Europeans had become final vulgar, so Esterházy alive get it just the fear of losing their own status quo. “We are moving everywhere fences, we even fence fences. Within the fences we are outside… Yes, the… Are not we.” Peter Simonischek fulfilled the words along with stunning precision, without being pregnant with meaning.

Because meaningfully the composition no longer sought after großformalem connection even. Péter Eötvös composed afterwards only the German excerpts of the text that is in the original much longer. He gives the fragments gestural energy along the way and the possibilities of a large orchestral apparatus sonically routinely used. The Vienna Philharmonic has the work incorporated in a series with which it the venerable Galerie their premieres summon at this year’s Festival, a slice of European history too. The Variations on a theme of Haydn about which premiered in 1873 Johannes Brahms in Vienna. Daniel Harding will conduct it after the break is a lightweight, perhaps a little too lightweight Taken Intermezzo. Or the Adagio, the Gustav Mahler envisaged as the first movement of his unfinished Tenth Symphony. Harding is also because of sonic transparency, remains almost cheerfully, without negating the emphasis of parting. Had Mahler remained more time, he would have enriched the texture, not let them stand naked. But as well as this Adagio remained a fragment, as Mahler died with 50 years, in even younger age than Peter Esterhazy.