Music Theatre
Dramaturgy and Concept
World première May 2018
at the Hamburg State Opera
Compositions: Alexander Chernyshkov, Andreas Eduardo Frank, Anastasija Kadiša
Stage direction: Aleksi Barrière, Franziska Kronfoth
Set Design: Eunsung Yang
Costume Design: Lea Søvsø
Dramaturgy: Isabelle Kranabetter, Elise Schobeß
Singers: Soomin Lee, Karina Repova, Jóhann Kristinsson, Julian Rohde
Actors: Gina-Lisa Maiwald, Thjorbjörn Björnsson
A ship at sea, the captain gone, no land in sight – the passengers left to their own devices. Thus begins a tale which turns into two stories, due to opposite human decisions: the stories of Libertalia and the story of Medusa’s raft. In the beginning, there is fear – in its purest form: fear of death. The goal is survival. Once a meaningful basic instinct allowing humans to flee or fight instead of dying, we in Europe today have exported this fear into the far distance, pathologising it as a relic or perverting it into a political decision-making factor. And yet, existential fear remains a motor driving humanity forward. Thus, the two stories of a group of people on a boat represent an exemplary Zero Hour, the crossroads of a society: do we want to cannibalise each other? Or create a new form of communality?