Abschied

How is a new beginning to be found following an end? It is this question that soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop devotes themselves to in their new production of music theatre, "Abschied" ("Farewell"). Their point of departure is the last movement of Gustav Mahler's 9th Symphony, the Adagio: "Very slowly and restrained." In his final completed work, Mahler movingly describes the farewell to life and transition to death, and, at the same time, the passage into a new epoch.

The soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop and soloists of the Hannover State Orchestra of Lower Saxony, together with director and composer Michael Rauter, choreographer Milla Koistinen, composer Ethan Braun, costume designer Johanna Perret, and artist Ladislav Zajac, explore the time span between a completed "before," to which there is no return, and a still uncertain "after." Together they examine what it would be like if such an intermediate state were to last forever...

Mahler's music has been orchestrated for a small ensemble and its performative, tonal, and spatial aspects reinterpreted. This appropriation frees the composition from the overwhelming pathos of a great orchestral work and reveals its multi-layered potential. The soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop thus once again creates a piece of music theatre that shifts traditional ways of listening and focuses on the physicality of the music and of the music-makers themselves.