MEDIATHEK

Orlando is a man, is a woman, today, yesterday, tomorrow. „Orlando“ is a myth formed by Ariosto, Lully, Händel and Woolfs and transformed through eras, sexes and gender. Orlando defines him-/herself as by elusiveness. Search and quest on identity build the main concept of the play that premiered in 2013 as the result of a collaborative development process of scholarship holders of the Deutsche Bank Stiftung.

„Orlando“ questions the sense and meaning about being part of an heroic epic. The main character Orlando is constantly asked by the persons on stage to fullfill his role as a superhero – but he decides to stay passiv. He incorporates a hero who demonstrates absence on stage. He lies down, he refuses, he hands the tasks of leading the plot over to the others. He/her is then tempted to take action again by the stage characters, who are confronted with an unclear situation. They are coming up with standard moments of opera.

A love duett without response, a birthday party prepared by the hero‘s family waiting for the main character, finally Orlando is being travelled to the moon, a storage place where one might find the collection of all heros‘ minds. Is Orlando‘s mind present? Orlando is presented as the gap, the blank space which opens up our imagination. Do we still need heroes? And if so – is it about being chosen or about developing certain strategies to become one?

The libretto of „Orlando“ deals a lot with the failing of communication. Using a lot of double-meanings and quotations the language of the characters leaves every individual on stage restricted in their own world and invites the audience to fill the words with their own content. Based on the search for a leading character the other persons on stage are constantly changing their role. In order to get Orlando involved again they incorporate different roles, initiate different situations, but constantly fail and fall back to a basic „actor“ position.

By connecting different elements of the non-narrative plot, the music bestows a kind of magic plausibility upon the play. Units of Speaking, singing, mumbling, whispering, screaming are smoothly merging from one to the other while text is always presented with a „musical intention“. Popular genres and „bad taste“ music are interweaved in the composition.

A landscape of sculptures structure the space by a slow transformation from depth to narrowness. Though the objects refer to concrete shapes they get redefined by the way they are used.