The Blind by Lera Auerbach
Behind the scenes : Public rehearsal of an a cappella opera after Maurice Maeterlinck
Musical Director: Philip Mayers
Director: Cornelia Heger
Stage Design: Frank Michael Zeidler
Costumes: Manuela Mildt, Anja Mikolajetz
Dramaturgy: Katharina Tarján
Production Manager: Karin Lindner
Vocalconsort Berlin
with: Inge Clerix | Yvonne Friedli | Claudia van Hasselt | Helena Köhne | Angelika Weber | Viola Wiemker | Kai-Uwe Fahnert | Maciej Straburzynski | Friedemann Hecht | Tobias Müller-Kopp | Thomas Stimmel | Oliver Uden
In order to enjoy the last rays of sun before the winter, a priest has shepherded a group of 12 blind people from their home out into the woods. Whilst searching for a clearing, he has wandered away from his charges, who, supposedly helpless and unable to cope with their surroundings, find themselves at the mercy of an unknown fate…. “The Blind” is considered to be Maurice Maeterlinck’s most important symbolist play. In this piece, Maeterlinck, who achieved international literary fame after winning the 1911 Nobel Prize for Literature, subtly addresses the great human issues: “where have we come from?” and “where are we going to?”
Lera Auerbach ist one of the most-performed composers of her generation. Born in Siberia in 1973, the pianist and composer emigrated in 1991 to New York, where she now lives. In “The Blind”, her first opera, she limits her forces to the unaccompanied human voice, thereby availing herself of the most moving and immediate implements of human expression.
A co-production of Berliner Kammeroper and Konzerthaus Berlin
Supported by funds from the Berliner Kulturverwaltung