Arnold Schoenberg’s most famous work and a touchstone of musical modernism, “Pierrot Lunaire” has been turned into a music theatre production by the combined forces of the dissonArt ensemble, composer Dimitris Maronidis (electronics), and director Alexandros Efklidis.
“Pierrot Lunaire” (1912), the first atonal masterpiece from the father of the twelve-tone technique, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), is transformed here into a piece of music theatre. The vocally demanding role of Pierrot is performed by Frauke Aulbert, a singer the international Press has dubbed the “Queen of avant-garde”.
On a set inspired by Man’s efforts to commune with the universe, musicians and stage performers execute minor rituals that they hope will bring them closer to the unknown to which they aspire. Making use of the innate theatricality of the 21 poems by Albert Giraud which Schoenberg set to music, the production brings together Schoenberg’s historic avant-garde, contemporary psychoacoustics, the moon-dreams of the post-Romantic Pierrot, and the bleakness of the world after the conquest of the Moon.
Athens | Stegi | 2&3 April 2016
https://www.onassis.org/whats-on/pierrot-lunaire-by-arnold-sch%C3%B6nberg