Death in Venice

In the organizer's words:

Death in Venice / Opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten

The widowed poet Aschenbach had always pursued his writing with iron discipline. A trip to Venice is supposed to give the exhausted author new strength and inspiration. But there, of all places, he falls in love with the boy Tadzio. These unspoken and unlivable feelings remain with Aschenbach, but they shake up his entire, not least artistic, being.

Benjamin Britten and his long-time librettist Myfanwy Piper premiered their adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1973. The composer created strongly moving music for it, reflecting dream images and emotional fluctuations, which is capable of touching the innermost being and shaking it up.

Like the poet, the composer was less concerned with the melancholy swan song of an ageing man to his youth and his own tabooed sexuality. Rather, it was about the question of how strongly intellect, craft and the personal emotional world can, want to or even should intertwine in artistic work.

The silent role of the boy Tadzio is given a great scenic presence, as he is often present in Aschenbach's thoughts and phantasmagorias. The love of an adult man for a boy is thematized and scenically alluded to - but there will be no actual assault.