Volksoper Vienna 22 February 2024 - Evening of modern ballets: Promethean Fire, Lontano, Ramifications, Beaux | GoComGo.com

Evening of modern ballets: Promethean Fire, Lontano, Ramifications, Beaux

Volksoper Vienna, Volksoper, Vienna, Austria
All photos (1)
Thursday 22 February 2024
7 PM

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Important Info
Type: Modern Ballet
City: Vienna, Austria
Starts at: 19:00

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

You can only select the category, and not the exact seats.
If you order 2 or 3 tickets: your seats will be next to each other.
If you order 4 or more tickets: your seats will be next to each other, or, if this is not possible, we will provide a combination of groups of seats (at least in pairs, for example 2+2 or 2+3).

Overview

With the premiere of Promethean Fire at the Volksoper, the Vienna State Ballet presents two outstanding artists of American modern dance for the first time: Paul Taylor and Mark Morris. Their ballets examine the outer contours of the Promethean motif – in between hubris and humanity, disaster and beauty, creation and transience. 

Prometheus has formed a human being out of clay, given the humans fire and thereby created civilisation. For his rebellion against the father of the gods Zeus, he has had to pay with terrible suffering – chained to a rock where an eagle repeatedly feasts on his liver. Prometheus is a figure who symbolises liberation from ignorance and oppression: as “the forward thinker” he represents progress, but also control over nature and, not least, the grand delusions of humans who behave as if they were gods. 

Paul Taylor’s Promethean Fire ought to be viewed as a direct reaction to the attacks on “Nine Eleven”. Even if the choreographer subsequently withdrew this specific allusion, a fundamental mood of disaster is present in the space: conflicts break out, emotions clash – but hope prevails in the end in this moving dance drama. 

By contrast, with his wonderful sense of humour Mark Morris puts nine beaux on stage: men of beauty, real men, but also good mates, chivalrous gentlemen and innocent angels. At the same time, with its lightness of touch, Beaux is an example of ambitious, lucid “music-making with the body”. 

Ballet Director Martin Schläpfer responds to the two Americans’ powerful language of modern dance with two miniatures: subtle movement studies that glow in delicate colours, dances that are like “the powder on butterflies’ wings.”

Venue Info

Volksoper Vienna - Vienna
Location   Währinger Strasse 78

The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It produces three hundred performances of twenty-five German language productions during an annual season which runs from September through June.

Volksoper Vienna was built in 1898 as the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater (Kaiser's Jubilee Civic Theatre), originally producing only plays. Because of the very brief construction period (10 months) the first director Adam Müller-Gutenbrunn had to start with debts of 160,000 gulden. After this inauspicious startup the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater had to declare bankruptcy five years later in 1903.

On 1 September 1903 Rainer Simons took over the house and renamed it the Kaiserjubiläum-Stadttheater - Volksoper (public opera). His intention was to continue the production of plays but also establish series of opera and operetta. The first Viennese performances of Tosca and Salome were given at the Volksoper in 1907 and 1910 respectively. World-famous singers such as Maria Jeritza, Leo Slezak and Richard Tauber appeared there; the conductor Alexander Zemlinsky became the first bandmaster in 1906.

In the years up to and through the First World War the Volksoper attained a position as Vienna's second prestige opera house. In 1919, Felix Weingartner became Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. He was followed as Director by Hugo Gruder-Guntram. After 1929, it focused on light opera, and under Gruder-Guntram undertook a number of summer tours to Abbazia in 1935, Cairo and Alexandria in 1937 and throughout Italy in 1938, with guest appearances from Richard Tauber. After the Second World War, the Vienna Volksoper became the alternative venue to the devastated Vienna State Opera. In 1955 the Volksoper returned to its former role of presenting opera, operetta, and musicals.

From September 1991 to June 1996 the Vienna Volksoper was under a collective leadership with the Vienna State Opera. In 1999 the Volksoper became a 100% subsidiary of the Bundestheater-Holding. Since 1 September 2007 Robert Meyer has headed the Volksoper as artistic director together with the business manager Christoph Ladstätter. Each season includes about 25 productions, a total of approximately 300 performances—a performance almost every day. In addition to opera, operetta, musicals and ballet, there are special performances and children's programs.

Important Info
Type: Modern Ballet
City: Vienna, Austria
Starts at: 19:00
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