Novecento oder Die Legende vom Ozean­pianisten

Novecento or The Legend of the Ocean Pianist - by Alessandro Baricco - in a version by Anton Schreiber - premiere on April 17, 2024 as part of Fokus Ukraine - European Theatre Festival "777 Days Днів Days" - Schauspielhaus,Kleines Haus - Schauspiel

We are in the 1920s, the golden age of jazz. The ocean liner "Virginian" is a floating city, traveling back and forth between the coasts of Europe and America. On board, the Atlantic Jazz Band plays day in, day out, for first-class tourists and third-class fortune seekers alike. Passengers from all over the world come and go, but the Atlantic Jazz Band stays and plays. Novecento is the band's pianist, and he is the best pianist the ocean has ever heard. The sounds he elicits from the piano come from other spheres, they put the listener into a trance. It is as if he is capturing the infinite richness of the world on the 88 keys of his instrument, a world that he himself has never seen and will never see. Novecento was born on the ship, grew up as an orphan and would not leave the steamer once until it sank in the turmoil of the Second World War.

But "The Legend of the Ocean Pianist", as told by the Italian author Alessandro Baricco, is not only a unique declaration of love to the improvisational art of jazz, it is also the story of a highly unusual friendship: between the gifted pianist Novecento and the trumpeter Tim Tooney, who seems to value life more than art and who therefore lovingly confronts his friend time and again with the inevitable mundane questions that even the greatest artist cannot escape. Only the onset of war can jeopardize this friendship.