Der Idiot /​Le Miracle de la rose

Music Theatre Diptych
[work-​in-​progress]

Can beauty really save the world?

Hans Werner Henze, one of the greatest German composers of the second half of the 20^th century, is best known for his playful, political chamber operas — but his more experimental formal research, on the borderline between music theater and dance, has yet to be rediscovered: it has resulted in original creations that are still too little known and performed. After a first exploration of his music in our music theatre evening Violences, we turn to two of his works for dancers: the “imaginary theatre” Le Miracle de la rose, after Jean Genet, and the “ballet-​pantomime” Der Idiot, after Dostoyevsky, on an original text by the poet Ingeborg Bachmann. Two complementary visions of the providential “saint” figure, supposed to save the society he enters – in one case the carceral system, in the other the bourgeoisie of Petersburg… Which one is most toxic?