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William Forsythe II

VenueDeutsche Oper Berlin
CalendarFri 19 Mar 2027 - Sun 27 Jun 2027
Synopsis/Details

 

This evening brings together two key works by the choreographer William Forsythe, which conceive of ballet not exclusively as a kinesthetic event but as a product of aggregated semiotic fields.

In the enigmatic duet Of Any If And (1995), the stage becomes the medium for an existential inquiry. The title is drawn from a fragment of Lucretius’ didactic poem De rerum naturâ (On the Nature of Things). While Lucretius intends to describe the dissolution of the body after death as an offering of solace through philosophical understanding, Forsythe attempts to scenographically reverse this process. The choreography thus becomes an ongoing process within the context of an attempt to delay the decay of form.

In Artifact Suite (2004), Forsythe revisits his seminal work Artifact (1984) and condenses it into a strictly formal and energetic variation. In the first section, set to Bach’s Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor, Forsythe uses the device of a falling curtain as a metaphor for the ellipses in ballet history. Just as the intermediate evolutionary periods of classical ballet technique have become obscured over the centuries, Forsythe’s curtain visually mimics the inaccessibility of this genesis and its now remote origins.

In the second section, composer Eva Crossman-Hecht builds on Ferruccio Busoni’s 1893 transcription of Bach’s Chaconne. Her suite of propulsive musical variations ultimately develops a disturbing «Urkraft,» something akin to the most fundamental pressures captured in large, but constrained, physical demonstrations of force.

Suitable for ages 10 and above

Choreographies by William Forsythe Music by Thom Willems, Johann Sebastian Bach, Eva Crossman-Hecht 

Introduction: 45 minutes before curtain. 

Duration: 01h 45m with one interval

Cast

William Forsythe

Thom Willems

William Forsythe

Stephen Galloway

William Forsythe

Johann Sebastian Bach, Eva Crossman-Hecht

William Forsythe

Venue
Deutsche Oper Berlin

The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house and also home to the Berlin State Ballet.

The company's history goes back to the Deutsches Opernhaus built by the then independent city of Charlottenburg—the "richest town of Prussia"—according to plans designed by Heinrich Seeling from 1911. It opened on November 7, 1912 with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, conducted by Ignatz Waghalter. After the incorporation of Charlottenburg by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act, the name of the resident building was changed to Städtische Oper (Municipal Opera) in 1925.

 

Deutsches Opernhaus, 1912
With the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933, the opera was under control of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Minister Joseph Goebbels had the name changed back to Deutsches Opernhaus, competing with the Berlin State Opera in Mitte controlled by his rival, the Prussian minister-president Hermann Göring. In 1935, the building was remodeled by Paul Baumgarten and the seating reduced from 2300 to 2098. Carl Ebert, the pre-World War II general manager, chose to emigrate from Germany rather than endorse the Nazi view of music, and went on to co-found the Glyndebourne opera festival in England. He was replaced by Max von Schillings, who acceded to enact works of "unalloyed German character". Several artists, like the conductor Fritz Stiedry or the singer Alexander Kipnis followed Ebert into emigration. The opera house was destroyed by a RAF air raid on 23 November 1943. Performances continued at the Admiralspalast in Mitte until 1945. Ebert returned as general manager after the war.

After the war, the company in what was now West Berlin used the nearby building of the Theater des Westens until the opera house was rebuilt. The sober design by Fritz Bornemann was completed on 24 September 1961. The opening production was Mozart's Don Giovanni. The new building opened with the current name.

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