A few short years after Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, in 1937, Ernst Jünger wrote On the Marble Cliffs anticipated the horror of the concentration camps, in a prediction of what would come to pass. In this novel we see reflected the subtle and terrible methods used by totalitarian thought to confine an entire society.

In On the Marble Cliffs, the forest ranger, the novel’s protagonist, is a fascinating symbol of a dictator. He bursts into Marina, a peaceful territory, to impose his power. Giorgio Battistelli, long fascinated with this work and Jünger himself, adapted the novel to musical language in a modern opera with nine scenes that transmit the essence of one of the most controversial texts of European literature.

Very appropriately, the opera On the Marble Cliffs premiered in Manheim six months after the September 11th attacks in New York, when the world began to feel the effects of a new “forest ranger”. The opera was a resounding critical and popular success and returned a year later, a rare occurrence for a new work.

Jünger had expressed his desire that, if the opera version of On the Marble Cliffs was realized, that no German artist be allowed to participate in its conception or development. He wanted the project to be as distanced as possible from the prejudices awakened in the German people, even today, by any reference to Nazism. The creators of the music and the libretto were two Italians (Giorgio Battistelli and Giorgio Van Stratten), the musical director was Hungarian (Adam Smith) and the staging was realised by a Spaniard (Carlos Padrissa, of La Fura dels Baus).

Música
Giorgio Battistelli

Textos
Giorgio Van Straten y Giorgio Battistelli, basado en la obra homónima de Ernst Jünger (1895-2001).

Dirección escénica, escenografía y vestuario
Carlos Padrissa (La Fura dels Baus).

Dirección musical
Adam Fisher

Directora asistente
Valentina Carrasco

Diseño de Iluminación
Andreas Rehfeld

Creación y realización vídeo
David Cid

Dirección del coro
Wolfgang Balzer

Dramaturgia
Heindrikje Mautner

Reparto
Hermano Minor: Thomas Berau.
Hermano Otho: Tomas Jesatko.
Belovar: Winfried Sakai.
Fürst von Sunmyra: Yuriy Svatenko.
Guardas forestales: Alfred Tewes, Vasile Tartan, Stephan Somburg, Hyun-Seck Kim.
Erio (un niño): Naom Tesfa.
Lampusa: Foster Blum.

Voz de la memoria
En directo desde Barcelona: Jürgen Müller
(La Fura dels Baus).

Actores
Katja Alves, Christian Cujovic, Alex Dörr, Chrisian Flemming, Ralph Hauber,
Josh Maußhardt, Olga Mayer, Jessica Naujoks, Rainer Polsz, Giovanni Romano,
Soolmas Sadraei-Kashani, Anne Serbin, Melanie Vollmer.

Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim
Chor und Statisterie des Nationaltheaters Manheim.

Producción vídeo
Full animation

Director de animación 3D
Francisco García

Operador 3D
Noel Rodríguez

Estilo y dibujo
Sagar Fornies

Videoconferencia
Techno-Trends

Técnicos de vídeo
Marc Jabal, Joan Rodón.

Estreno
8/3/02, en el Nationaltheater Mannheim.

Representaciones
12

Una producción del Nationaltheater Mannheim.

In 1937, shortly prior Hitler’s rise to power, Ernst Jünger wrote this story that many understood as an allegory of the arrival of totalitarianism. In the opera staged by La Fura dels Baus, maintains the key points of the text using a radically new language.