World Premiere: 21 August 2014 – Bregenzer Festspiele / KAZ, Bregenz, Austria
Music by Peter Herbert
Novella by Hans Platzgumer
Stage director by Ran Arthur Braun
Video by Lillevan
In German with Arabic, French, Russian and Turkish interjections
Synopsis:
Anton Corwald is a successful contractor who takes a team of Austrian workers and engineers to Libya in 2011 to build a high-speed transport link for Gaddafi’s regime. Not long afterwards an uprising against the dictator starts in the east of the country and the construction workers find themselves caught up in the turmoil of the civil war that is later christened the Arab Spring. Without information, work or any communication with the outside world, they are held at the camp on the building site and their food supplies are rationed. The only hope is that Corwald will find a way to get his men out of the country.
Hans Platzgumer’s novella Trans-Maghreb was a book recommendation for the year 2012 by the German newspaper FAZ, which praised the work as a “shimmering meditation about the unintelligibility of the present day”.
The novella has been adapted into a libretto for the Bregenz Festival in 2014.
Music director: Benjamin Lack
Stage director: Ran Arthur Braun
Stage designer. Susanna Boehm
Costume designer: Claudia Raab
Lighting designer: Matthias Zuggal
Video: Lillevan
Gerald (buffo tenor): Robert Maszl
Anton Corwald (bass): Wilfried Staber
Tahédag: Amal Murkus
Gerhard (buffo tenor): Stanislav Kuflyuk
Gonzo (bass): Markus Raab
Abdullah & Kemal (bass): Sebastian Campione
Mahmoud (extra): Juliusz Kubiak
Performers of the Bregenz Festival Prague Philharmonic Choir
Commissioned by the Bregenz Festival
More info: Festival Website