Der Wij

At a time when war has brought death and destruction to Europe and endangered our values, artists unite on stage in the spirit of FREEDOM. Kirill Serebrennikov and friends are heading west, to Europe, and looking for new partnerships: "Gogol Center. Europe meets Thalia." With a European ensemble, Serebrennikov wants to realize in the spirit of art what is currently almost impossible in reality: partnership between artists who, regardless of their origin, believe in the same values - despite everything. With material by the author Nikolai Gogol, born in Ukraine in 1809.
As a chronicler of his time, Gogol wrote down a Ukrainian folk tale in 1835 - it has since become the subject of successful fantasy and horror films. In it, reason has to fight against the dark, even magical and destructive powers of an earthbound root figure called "Vij", whose eyelids reach down to the ground, and is taken hostage by it.

Kirill Serebrennikov adapts the material in a radically contemporary way under the impression of current circumstances and reads it as a story about war. He inscribes counter-worlds of European art and poetry into the material, which believe in the power of humanity instead of the power of destruction - despite Leningrad, Hiroshima, Coventry, Dresden, Grozny or Mariupol.

Duration 2:00h, no intermission

World premiere December 3, 2022, Thalia Gauss

An international production