Gu Cheng - Chinese Poet Waiheke

Cong Su: Mercury Light WorldINTERCULTURE MUSIC THEATREVenue: Hebbel am Ufer HAU EINS
Cong Su Mercury Light Worldmusic theatre after poems by Gu Chenglibretto by Michael Schindhelm (2005) WP/CWChen Shi-Zheng · directionRenchang Fu · conductorYoshio Yabara · stage/costumesDong-Jian Gong · bassLi Yanan · sopranoDie Maulwerker · choirLeigh Haas/flora&faunavisions · video designMatthias Kirschke · sound directionVeit Gries · lighting designGregor Luft · technical directorKathrin Veser · assistant directorKathrin Veser/Katherine Quigley · production managerIn Chinese with German supertitlesMaerzMusik Berliner Festspiele in coproduction with Hebbel am Ufer HAU, Theater Basel and Brisbane Festival, in cooperation with Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds 18:30 introduction with Cong Su, Michael Schindhelm and Chen Shi-Zhengmoderation · Matthias Osterwold-->
Subject of the libretto is the poetry of Chinese lyric poet Gu Cheng, one of the most outstanding Chinese poets of his generation. His childhood was determined by the Mao Cultural Revolution, his adolescence by the short thaw period following Mao’s death, his later life by exile and alienation. As a young man, Cheng travelled from Beijing to New Zealand and Europe, spent a whole year in Berlin on invitation of DAAD, created an existentialist-Taoist work in which his personal quest for identity and a modern consciousness are being reflected on the border between cultural and chronological eras. The quest becomes the subject of the libretto, employing various poems from the cycles Mercury Light Worlds and Advent of the Spirits/Spirits on Their Way to the City. The central focus of the plot revolves aound a person found unconscious in a Berlin street, who, when coming to realizes to have lost all sense of identity. Nobody knows who this person is. Police, public and diplomatic investigations yield no results. Without an identity but with an awareness of foreign origins, the protagonist is headed for a dramatic self-questioning.Cong Su does not compose an opera for instrumental ensemble but creates a computer-generated sound image by merging music and nature sounds.