The live premiere of Milo Rau’s first opera direction, La Clemenza di Tito, at the Antwerp Opera delighted audiences and press. “Rau totally lives up to his reputation: he questions himself and, above all, delivers a very human piece,” wrote the critic of Het Nieuwsblad.

“The boundaries of opera have been pushed a bit,” wrote De Tijd, NRC gave the “rough and magical” production 5 stars, and De Standaard emphasized: “The most creative and confrontational interpretation of La Clemenza in recent decades.”

But of course, Rau’s radical take on Mozart’s last opera shocked many lovers of the genre. „The most brutal form of director’s theater I have experienced to date,“ wrote a critic on a blog, another one complained: “No respect for tradition. Is Rau becoming a travesty of anti-art?”

Make your own judgment: after Antwerp, La Clemenza di Tito travels to Ghent and Luxembourg this autumn – and will be staged at the Vienna Festival 2024 in a completely new version!

“The doors to the future must be opened again,” said Milo Rau last week in an interview. In his essay Die Rückeroberung der Zukunft (The Reconquest of the Future), which has just been published by Rowohlt Verlag, Rau now reveals the methods of his artistic work.

How can we break out of the “total present” and reclaim a human, solidary future? How do IIPM’s “poetics of the real” work? And what are its dangers – morally, politically and humanly?

In three parts – On the Total Present, In Praise of Extremism, and The Reconquest of the Future – Milo Rau outlines the aesthetics of his projects in film, theatre and institutional work. Now in all German-language bookstores – various translations are in preparation.