Press Kit Press Briefing February 16, 2009 10:00am, Großes Haus Foyer 1st Tier Première Picknick im Felde
PICKNICK IM FELDE Opera in one act Music and libretto by Constantinos Stylianou Based on Pique-nique en campagne by Fernando Arrabal German version by Tobias Ribitzki based on a translation by François Smesny In collaboration with Linz09 Première February 20, 2009, 7:30pm, Kammerspiele Musical Director Stage Director Stage and Costume Designer Dramaturgy Ingo Ingensand/Borys Sitarski Tobias Ribitzki Florian Angerer Sarah Schäfer Zapo (Sodier) Zépo (Soldier) Madame Tépan (Mother) Monsieur Tépan (Father) Red Cross Orderlies Christian Zenker Iurie Ciobanu Cheryl Lichter Franz Binder Joanna Müller, Siegfried Dietrich Bruckner Orchestra Linz On Februar 20, 2009 there will be a media reception (6:00-7:00pm) in the Hall of Mirrors (Spiegelsaal) of the Promenadenhof. The Spanish-French writer, playwright and film director Fernando Arrabal and the Greek Cypriot composer Constantinos Stylianou will be addressing the assembled journalists, taking questions, and giving interviews immediately before the première. Gerhard Willert, the director of the theatre, will be there to help out as translator when needed.
In collaboration with Linz09, the Landestheater Linz stages a production of Constantinos Stylianou s opera Picknick im Felde, which highlights both the absurdity of war and of everyday life. PLOT OUTLINE During a lull in the hostilities of some anonymous war the soldier Zapo, who is stationed at the frontline, gets a surprise visit from his parents, who intend to have a picnic in the country with their son. They ve brought along a parasol, deck chairs and a record player to provide the atmosphere traditionally associated with a picnic. While the mother expresses her disapproval of the son bringing along his gun to the picnic and criticizes him for what she takes to be his lack of personal hygiene, the father is busy recasting the war in terms of an exciting adventure. All of a sudden the picnic party find themselves confronted with an enemy soldier (Zépo) and Zapo is reminded of his military duties. Hoping that this will bring him the longed-for promotion to corporal, Zapo takes the enemy soldier prisoner and proudly poses for a victory photo to be taken by his thrilled parents. In the absence of a better idea and in order for the family to be able to continue with the picnic undisturbed, they then release Zépo again and invite him to join them as they return to their feasting; over the horizon planes appear ready for the next bombing raid. Two Red Cross orderlies enter the scene looking for dead or wounded combatants. To their surprise they find no one in need of medical care, which is an obvious source of disappointment for them. As time goes by the two soldiers start wondering what made them go to war in the first place and why they face each other as enemies now. They discover that they have a lot in common. The picnic continues and so does the conversation. In the end the two soldiers come to the conclusion that war is above all boring and needs to be abolished. To underline that conclusion, mother puts on a record.
THE GENESIS OF PICKNICK IM FELDE The opera Picknick im Felde is based on the play Pique-nique en campagne by the Spanish- French playwright Fernando Arrabal. Arrabal s oeuvre belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd in the tradition of Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Beckett. Despite certain similarities between its main practitioners, the Theatre of the Absurd is no unified theatrical school; the playwrights did not belong to a formal literary group or programmatic movement. What enables us to subsume them under the common denominator of the Theatre of the Absurd is a perception of human existence as playing itself out in the absence of traditional values. The stage characters are representative of man at the mercy of his drives and dreams, which form the emotional undercurrent of what happens on the stage. There is no rational explanation for the behaviour of any of the characters. It follows that Arrabal s characters are highly unspecific heroes and heroines. There are no specifications as to their age or their background. In Picknick im Felde one of the characteristics of Arrabal s creatures is particularly in evidence: his adults have not moved beyond the experiential horizon of children, no matter what situation they find themselves in. This concerns morals, aesthetics and human relationships in equal measure. Arrabal unmercifully draws attention to this narrowness of his characters consciousness and in this way challenges the audience to turn the searchlight of their attention on themselves and their own world. The idea to turn Pique-nique en campagne into an opera was born directly from a reading of the play, according to the Greek-Cypriot composer Constantinos Stylianou. For him it is Arrabal s uncompromising style and the play s musical narrative pace that make it ideal for an opera and that in fact enabled him to transform the play fairly straightforwardly into a libretto; for the German translation he was able to make use of the assistance of Tobias Ribitzki, the director of this production.
CONSTANTINOS STYLIANOU The Greek-Cypriot composer (*1972) took courses in piano and composition at the Royal College of Music and at Royal Holloway in London. He began his musical career as a concert pianist; this included a performance with the ORF Symphony Orchestra in Vienna. Stylianou, who lives in London, is best known today as a composer; he has written works for a wide range of instruments, ranging from solo pieces to symphonic music and he is one of the most versatile composers of his generation. His work has been performed by several prestigious ensembles and orchestras such as the Jeunesse Musicale World Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra London. Stylianou s special interest belongs to the human voice, and a great number of works of vocal music, which include several cycles of Lieder, testify to his untiring desire to create a balanced whole from words, voice and musical form. The opera Picknick im Felde is Stylianou s first musical theatre composition and took shape between 2002 and 2005. It was preceded by Stylianou s close study of works for the stage with particular reference to Arrabal s oeuvre. His love of the human voice is evident in Picknick im Felde; he creates the space in his composition that the voice needs to unfold in its many aspects, from the spoken word to the grandest of vocal gestures, and he takes great care to achieve a perfect match between his use of the voice and what is required by any given dramatic situation.