Die Quelle

Music and concept: Lin Wang (b. 1976)
Text: Can Xue and Lin Wang
English translation: Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping

Musical director: Alexander Liebreich
Director: Andreas Bode
Set designer: David Schnell
Costume designer: Gwendolyn Jenkins
Dramatic advisor: Hans-Georg Wegner
Light: Andreas Grüter

Performers:
Steffi Lehmann (soprano)
Barbara Buffy (mezzo-soprano)
Bernhard Landauer (countertenor)
Loren Lang (bass-baritone)
Christian Hübner (bass)
Uwe Kramer (Schauspieler)

Wu Wei, Sheng
Xu Fengxia, Sanxian u. Guzheng

Münchener Kammerorchester

Composition and text commissioned by the City of Munich for the Munich Biennale

Co-production: Munich Biennale and Theater Bremen in co-operation with the EXPO 2010 Shanghai and the Goethe-Institute

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Tickets: € 20,–
Reduced rate: € 10,–

Online ticket sales: www.muenchenticket.de

World premiere:

Sunday, May 9, 8:00 p.m.

Additional performances:

Monday, May 10 and Tuesday, May 11, 8:00 p.m.

Gasteig/Carl-Orff-Saal

Composer forum: Lin Wang
Moderation: Peter Ruzicka
Sunday, May 9, 6:30 p.m.
Gasteig/Room 0.131

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The opera is based on a story by the author Can Xue. Topical experiences, memories, traditional symbols, and images from nature intermingle in her shadowy, enigmatic language. Lin Wang: “Her writing starts where thoughts and perceptions cease. She writes about the world and time, about death until life starts anew. I can’t get around it – I have to solve this riddle in my way or describe it.” The spring, its drying up, and its return become a symbol of the process in which life is created, endangered, gambled away, lost, and won back again. The external plot is not decisive, and not the confrontation between Jian Yi (a modern career woman) and landlords, bosses, and career rules – what is decisive is what occurs inside the persons. Lin Wang brings the drama of emotional realization and existential searching to the stage with the means of modern music theatre, including projections and electronics. It affects everybody: authors, the director, singers, musicians – and the audience.

Lin Wang, born 1976 in Dalian, China, studied from 1996 – 2001 at the Central Conservatory in Beijing. In 1998 she won the Maki Ishii Japanese-Chinese competition, and in 2000 the NLCC Twentieth Anniversary Choral Composition Prize in Great Britain. In 2002 Lin Wang continued her studies with Theo Brandmüller, Chaya Czernowin and Detlev Müller-Siemens in Saarbrücken and Vienna. She has worked with numerous renowned ensembles and orchestras. For her compositions she has received, among other awards, the Gaudeamus; the DAAD; and the Isang Yun Prize. In addition to composing, she is currently working with other authors on a book about culture in China since 2000.