Die Süsse unserer traurigen Kindheit

The sweetness of our sad childhood is a music theater project which approaches Georg Trakl, one of the leading figures of literary expressionism, with multi-layered musical, scenic, and visual materials based on his texts and letters. His poems have previously been the starting point for chamber and electro-acoustic compositions by Hans Tutschku. In this piece, he combines his musical settings of the texts with an unconventional stage setting, five instrumental soloists, two singers, a dancer, and video projections. The audience is thus integrated into the performance space and the borderlines between the performers and the observers are questioned. The stage direction concept by Françoise Rivalland was developed in close collaboration with the composer and supports their common vantage point. Namely, that there cannot be a clear interpretation of the poems. A selection of poems and excerpts from Trakl’s letters will be presented from different perspectives.
Texts were chosen for the piece, which in many ways focus on the theme of childhood. First of all, poems and fragmenst of letters, which deal directly with Trakl’s biography, his youth, and with his strong relationship to his sister, were chosen and furthermore, other texts which remind the composer of his own childhood are used. The stage set is made up partly of natural materials, which are taken from Trakl’s visual world – his world of nature with its extraordinary colors and atmospheres. Water, stones, leaves, and branches are used both as visual and aural elements in the piece, and resurface in the video projections as well. The result is a unique and moving music theater about the contemplation of fragility due to intimacy.

The project is made possible with the generous support of the Akademie Schloss Solitude.

excerpt

stereo mix of entire work

performance

rehearsals