WILLEN WAFFEN WAHN - Ein Liederabend in Zeiten des Krieges mit Carl von Clausewitz

This theatrical-musical evening juxtaposes the ideas of the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz with the emotional power of modern music, bringing the fault lines of today’s conflicts into sharp relief. Excerpts from *On War* meet songs and piano works from a wounded century. Clausewitz’s reflections on “defense,” “deterrence,” and “total war” sound alarmingly relevant today. In the interplay of theoretical analysis and human experience—as expressed, among other works, in the songs and piano pieces by Eisler, Wolpe, and Dessau, a disturbingly timely dialogue emerges in which thought and feeling challenge one another: the language of strategy meets the sound of experience, analysis meets an outcry, reason meets loss. Against the backdrop of current debates on war, rearmament, and conscription, the evening poses the following questions: How can we reflect on war without legitimizing it? How rational can violence be? And when does war serve an ideology?

Anna von Schrottenberg – Acting & Vocals
Matthew Rubenstein – Piano
Johanna Hasse – Concept & Direction

Funded by the Decentralized Cultural Affairs program of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf District Office of Berlin, Department of Culture.