Widmann's giant ARCHE

SPIEGELZAAL 13.40-14.05 UUR - Bas van Putten in conversation with Jörg Widmann

After the Dutch premiere of Jörg Widmann's overwhelming opera Babylon in 2017, the Matinee now brings ARCHE to the Netherlands. Karina Canellakis conducts.

From Michelangelo to Sloterdijk

With the oratorio ARCHE (2017), Jörg Widmann wrote another giant work for a monster ensemble five years after the world premiere of his opera Babylon. He mobilised around three hundred musicians for this commissioned piece, which he wrote for the opening of Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie; a large-staffed symphony orchestra, soprano and baritone soloists, two choirs and a children's choir. He also aims high on the poetic-philosophical level. The text sources range from Michelangelo to Peter Sloterdijk and from Matthias Claudius to Schiller, Heine and Nietzsche.

Burlesque forms and sober conclusion

Thematically, ARCHE, with its central role for the Flood, is akin to opera. It revolves around the relationship between man and God, which is threatened by a devastating natural disaster. What is a creator worth, who does this to his children? What is the value of a creation in which man is capable not only of the highest love but also of the lowest murder? The fact that there is no answer is the source of all human despair, which is dealt with in ARCHE with all its ups and downs. And which often takes on cabaretesque and burlesque forms, before the sober conclusion in the closing Dona nobis pacem that man himself is responsible for his own fate.

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