Deutsche Symphonie

In the organizer's words:

Music theater after Hanns Eisler

Oh Germany, pale mother! In an impressive composition process from 1935 to 1959, composer Hanns Eisler reacted to contemporary German history and put his musical work at the service of politics. From his exile in Moscow in 1935, he wrote to his partner in thought Bertolt Brecht: "I have a very interesting composition plan, namely I want to write a large symphony that will have the subtitle Concentration Camp Symphony. "

While Beethoven had already integrated choir and soloists for his Ninth, Eisler went one step further and created a large-scale vocal symphony of anti-fascist emigration between oratorio and political song with his German Symphony. Highly programmatically charged and agitated, the Deutsche Symphonie calls for left-wing resistance by the working class against National Socialism. As a political declaration against right-wing terror, his uncompromising composition paints an impressive picture of the final days of the Weimar Republic, the rise of right-wing tendencies, the post-war period and the division of Germany - always with a view to possible resistance, which is still sorely needed today. As a composer of national anthems, Eisler then found himself caught between two stools in the GDR, because here too, accusation and ideology did not solve the social problems and his musical and thematic unambiguity stood in stark contrast to the complexity of the post-war period.

Eisler's German Symphony is staged for the first time: at the INTERIM on the grounds of the former Jägerkaserne, where young men from Kassel and the surrounding area were mustered, even almost 100 years ago. After La muette de Portici and Don Giovanni, director Paul-Georg Dittrich returns to the Staatstheater Kassel and, together with Kiril Stankow, conjures up the ghosts of the past as warning voices of the present.