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      RAU MEETS MOZART ART OR ANTI-ART?   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 […]


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    “The boundaries of opera have been pushed” – new opera, new book!

     

    RAU MEETS MOZART
    ART OR ANTI-ART?

     

    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!

     

    More info

     

    IN PRAISE OF EXTREMISM
    NEW BOOK OUT

     

    “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.

     

    More info

     

    NEWS


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      Trailer   On September 10, Milo Rau opens the season at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen with his first opera work ever: La Clemenza di Tito. Rau places Mozart’s story around love, betrayal, the storming of the Capitol and the final forgiveness of the Roman Emperor Titus amidst a postmodern elite that uses art to […]


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    “The End of Art”: Rau meets Mozart

     

    Trailer

     

    On September 10, Milo Rau opens the season at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen with his first opera work ever: La Clemenza di Tito. Rau places Mozart’s story around love, betrayal, the storming of the Capitol and the final forgiveness of the Roman Emperor Titus amidst a postmodern elite that uses art to maintain its feudal power.

     

    Just like in his theater work, Rau invites non-professional actors to participate: the fate of the “common man” takes center stage, and extends Mozart’s world into today. “An opera like a thriller” (France Musique), “raw, radical and critical” (Keystone), “heart-ripping” (The Stage), “Mozart put on trial” (Le Monde) or “a theatrical revolution” (Olyrix) wrote the press after a streaming of Rau’s take on Mozart during COVID.

     

    Some others, however, were of the opinion that Rau was going too far: “The challenge is to know whether we are not on the threshold of Post-Opera. And therefore spectators of the end of our beloved art.” On 10 September, Rau’s controversial opera adaptation is performed live for the first time, conducted by Alejo Pérez, with a. o. Jeremy Ovenden, Anna Goryachova and Anna Malesza-Kutny.

    What is Post-Opera

     

    “I consider my version of Mozart to be a continuation of the activist manifesto I wrote for NTGent,” comments Rau in an essay. “My take on La Clemenza di Tito is a kind of ‘black mirror’ for engaged artists. Do we not only aestheticize the horrors of the world and thus make the real revolution impossible?”

     

    Milo Rau’s first lyrical work opens a new cycle in his oeuvre: Can there be a right life in the wrong one? With the performances The Last Generation, Medea’s Children and the operatic Passion Play Justice, Rau and his collaborators will examine the neoliberal economy of life and death in three attempts during Season 23/24 – but also the vital forces of love and solidarity.

     

    Have a great end of summer and see you in September!

     

    Background Interview

     

    NEWS


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      “What grows everywhere cannot be dissolved.” Les Soulèvements de la Terre   From this Sunday on, Milo Rau and his team come to the Festival d’Avignon with their newest show Antigone in the Amazon. Parallel to the play, the makers of Antigone in the Amazon and The Landless Worker’s Movement (MST) will present their […]


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    THE RADICAL NO. Milo Rau, MST and Soulèvements de la Terre at Festival d’Avignon

     

    “What grows everywhere cannot be dissolved.”

    Les Soulèvements de la Terre

     

    From this Sunday on, Milo Rau and his team come to the Festival d’Avignon with their newest show Antigone in the Amazon. Parallel to the play, the makers of Antigone in the Amazon and The Landless Worker’s Movement (MST) will present their “poetically and politically engaged theatre” in a whole series of discussions – in presence of Maria Raimunda Cesar, leader MST Pará, and Kananda Rocha Xavier, MST activist & choir leader of Antigone in the Amazon.

     

    What do the art institutions of the future look like? How do theatre and activism go together? What is the place of the real in art? “The European artist who redefines political theatre” critically discusses the theory and practice of “global realism” in various debates and with various other artists and activists at the Avignon Festival – find a detailled list of all events at the end of this mail.

     

    “I don’t want an electric car. I don’t want a car at all.”

    Ailton Krenak / Milo Rau:  The Radical No

     

    The highlight is The Radical No (The Making-of Antigone) on 18 July: MST and Milo Rau will present first sequences from the Antigone in the Amazon documentary (Fernando Nogari) and the Destroy What Destroys You videoclip (Pablo Casello & Elia Rediger) of their anti-greenwashing campaign Our Future is not for Sale – together with the philosopher Jerôme Baschet and representatives of the partner movement Soulèvements de la Terre (SDLT), which was recently dissolved by the French government.

     

    The artists of Antigone in the Amazon and the members of MST will be available for interviews after the press conference of 16 July (10:30) and the The Radical No (The Making-of Antigone) event at 18 July (14:00).

     

    Press contact here. Discover also our upcoming projects: All About Love, The Last Generation, The Seer & Medea’s Children.

     

    “The beauty of the collective comes from the freedom of each individual.”

    Transfuge Magazine

     

    MEET MILO RAU

     

    EVENTS

     


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      “A small history of theatre and a school of life as cruel as it is poetic.” Milo Rau on Medea’s Children (Season 23/24)   “I believe theatre is a place where we look lovingly at each other, as if together we could even overcome our mortality” : Milo Rau presented the Season 2023/24, the […]


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    All Greek Tragedies (and two operas): This is Season 2023/24!

     

    “A small history of theatre and a school of life as cruel as it is poetic.”

    Milo Rau on Medea’s Children (Season 23/24)

     

    “I believe theatre is a place where we look lovingly at each other, as if together we could even overcome our mortality” : Milo Rau presented the Season 2023/24, the last season programmed by him and his team at NTGent, with a speech about the individual and the community.

     

    The coming season will be entirely dedicated to the Greek tragedies – with performances from Gisèle Vienne to Luanda Casella, from Needcompany to STAN and from Tim Etchells to Jetse Batelaan, culminating in the All Greeks Festival: all 32 Greek tragedies, reinterpreted and restaged in the city of Ghent, “a tragedy marathon, a dream I have cherished for many years.”

     

    Rau himself will create two brand new pieces: Medea’s Children and The Last Generation – in collaboration with many international partners, a. o. the Wiener Festwochen, for which Rau is responsible as Artistic Director since this month. His first edition will take place in early summer 2024, a “mythical, powerful and controversial theatre festival” is announced!

     

    23/24 will also see two operas: the re-staging of Milo Rau’s “post-opera” La Clemenza di Tito by Mozart, with which the Swiss director will open the Flemish Opera in September. And Rau’s first opera of his own: the “choral elegy” Justice, created together with the Catalan composer Hèctor Parra and the Congolese poet Fiston Mwanza Mujila for the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

     

    And, highly anticipated: These days, Milo Rau’s successors as Artistic Directors of NTGent will be announced! We look forward to continuing the adventure of the “City Theatre of the Future” – united in diversity.

     

    Season Program

     

    NEWS

     


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      “The indigenous peoples who had been driven from their lands, the enslaved people who had been brought from Africa to Brazil in ships for three hundred and fifty years, the thousands of destitute men and women who fled here from Europe – that mishmash of peoples and stories make up the MST movement.” (MST […]


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    From Dusk till Dawn: Milo Rau & NTGent present Season 2023/24

     

    “The indigenous peoples who had been driven from their lands, the enslaved people who had been brought from Africa to Brazil in ships for three hundred and fifty years, the thousands of destitute men and women who fled here from Europe – that mishmash of peoples and stories make up the MST movement.”
    (MST on the making of Antigone in the Amazon)


    Read the full text here in     Portuguese or English.

     

    Antigone in the Amazon, the radical appropriation of Sophocles’ Antigone by the activists of the Brazilian Landless Workers‘ Movement (MST) in partnership with NTGent and IIPM travelled Belgium, Holland, Germany and Austria the last month. The project “digests the Greek classic in a poetic as well as subversive act, deflating its hierarchies of vision and interpretation,” as a critic wrote.

     

    Accompanied by an international campaign against greenwashing and a series of debates about the political and esthetical backgrounds, conflicts and utopias of a radically transcultural production, organized together with MST and local activists, Antigone in the Amazon returns this weekend to Ghent before traveling on to France and many other countries.

     

    Meanwhile, the “vivid and urgent” (The Guardian) new version of IIPM’s classic Hate Radio premiered in Rwanda itself, in the presence of the Rwandan First Lady, and went on tour to France and England. While Rau’s new book What theatre can do – a “literary jewel” according to a critic – hits the bookstores, IIPM and their partners close the running season with shows of  Everywoman and La Reprise in Spain, Portugal and Turkey.

     

    But the season 2023/24 is already around the corner: On Monday, June 12, Milo Rau – together with NTGent artists Luanda Casella, Lara Staal, Linda Leah Nyirenda, Julie Mughunda, Chokri ben Chikha and Alexander Devriendt – presents his last season as Artistic Director at the Flemish City Theatre before moving to the Wiener Festwochen.

     

    Especially for this evening, Rau is staging a sequence of scenes inspired by the 32 surviving Greek tragedies, performed by Arne De Tremerie and Princess Hassan Isatu Bangura, musically accompanied by Antigone in the Amazon co-composer Pablo Casella.

     

    Season Presentation


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      „Different kinds of struggle complete each other, like forests. Antigone in the Amazon is one of the seeds planted by many hands whose fruits will nourish our hope and confidence in the future.” Douglas Estevam, Landless Workers’ Movement (full text)   The Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has been working with IIPM and the […]


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    Invitation to Public Press Conference: Landless Workers’ Movement & Milo Rau/IIPM at Burgtheater Vienna

     

    „Different kinds of struggle complete each other, like forests. Antigone in the Amazon is one of the seeds planted by many hands whose fruits will nourish our hope and confidence in the future.”
    Douglas Estevam, Landless Workers’ Movement (    full text)

     

    The Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has been working with IIPM and the Belgian theatre NTGent for many years now. Since May 13th, their play “Antigone in the Amazon” is touring Europe and, after shows in Ghent and Amsterdam, will come to the Burgtheater in the context of the Vienna Festival.

     

    Already in May 2020, Kay Sara, one of the protagonists of “Antigone in the Amazon”, opened the Vienna Festival with the widely discussed speech “This Madness has to stop“. Now the second part of the “Declaration of 13 May” campaign against greenwashing – supported by Angela Davis, Donna Haraway, Vandana Shiva, Noam Chomsky, Ailton Krenak, Annie Ernaux, Brian Eno, and Elfriede Jelinek – will be launched in the Austrian capital.

     

    In the morning before the German-language premiere of this “analysis of activism, existence, and resistance”, MST, IIPM and NTGent organize a public press conference at the Burgtheater: How does transnational solidarity work in art? What can a fair global economy look like? In addition to the world premiere of the campaign video clip “Tomorrow is not for Sale”, the first agricultural products of the “Declaration of 13 May” will be presented. For an ecology and aesthetics of radical care!

     

    MST & IIPM
    Press Conference
    Thursday, 25 May 2023, 11:00 am
    Burgtheater, Pausenfoyer, Universitätsring 2, Vienna
    Free Access

     

    With: Douglas Estevam, member of the coordination group of the MST national cultural collective; Alan Leite, activist of MST Pará and actor in “Antigone in the Amazon”; Pablo Casella & Elia Rediger, composer “Tomorrow is not for Sale” campaign song; Milo Rau, director “Antigone in the Amazon”.


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      DECLARATION   Milo Rau, Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno, Elfriede Jelinek, Yanis Varoufakis, Angela Davis, Slavoj Zizek, Annie Ernaux, Carola Rackete, David Van Reybrouck and 50 other prominent scientists, artists and activists from around the world have signed the Declaration of 13 May, published today. The signatories declare their solidarity with the Landless Workers’ Movement […]


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    Milo Rau, Angela Davis, Annie Ernaux, Brian Eno, Yanis Varoufakis and 50 more prominent figures call for boycott against European food companies!

     

    DECLARATION

     

    Milo Rau, Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno, Elfriede Jelinek, Yanis Varoufakis, Angela Davis, Slavoj Zizek, Annie Ernaux, Carola Rackete, David Van Reybrouck and 50 other prominent scientists, artists and activists from around the world have signed the Declaration of 13 May, published today. The signatories declare their solidarity with the Landless Workers’ Movement MST in Brazil, the largest social movement in Latin America, criticise the practices of big Brazilian agrobusiness and companies such as Ferrero, and demand immediate action against greenwashing through certificates.

     

    “Food producers claim that everything is fine because the big agribusinesses where they buy palm oil or soy have green certificates. Indeed, everything looks good and sustainable on paper, but in practice these companies flout the rules. There is deforestation, land grabbing and serious human rights violations. We are demanding a radical system change, starting with an immediate verification of certificates and the boycott of all products from the buyers of large Brazilian agro-trusts that destroy the Amazon rainforest”, the signatories say.

     

    The call for boycott comes at the same time as the European premiere of Milo Rau’s latest theatre production: For Antigone in the Amazon, Rau and his team travelled to the Brazilian state of Pará to work with the Landless Workers’ Movement MST. Near the city of Marabá, where 19 MST activists were shot dead by military police on 17 April 1996 on a road through the Amazon forest during a march for land reform, the Swiss director staged a new version of Sophocles’ Antigone this spring.

     

    Now, Milo Rau and 50 prominent figures from all over Europe, Brazil and the world declare their solidarity with the MST, which is fighting for land reform, truly ecological agriculture and against the destruction of the rainforest. Stop the certified sell-out of our planet!  Land reform now! Against neoliberal greenwashing! For an economy of radical care!

     

    HOMEPAGE & FACT CHECK

     


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      Rehearsals on Antigone in the Amazon are nearing their first climax: Coming Monday, 17 April 2023, the largest massacre perpetrated by the Brazilian military police against the Brasilian Landless Movement (MST) in 1996 will be re-enacted at the scene of the crime: the occupied Transamazonica near Marabá in the Brazilian State of Pará.   […]


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    “Antigone in the Amazon”: We occupy the Transamazonica!

     

    Rehearsals on Antigone in the Amazon are nearing their first climax: Coming Monday, 17 April 2023, the largest massacre perpetrated by the Brazilian military police against the Brasilian Landless Movement (MST) in 1996 will be re-enacted at the scene of the crime: the occupied Transamazonica near Marabá in the Brazilian State of Pará.

     

    The mythical Transamazonica Highway, which not only cuts through the rainforest but also destroys indigenous societies, will be paralyzed for a whole day by MST and Milo Rau’s team and used as a political stage for resistance.

     

    Hundreds of activists, including the survivors of the massacre, who also form the choir for the theatre production Antigone in the Amazon will participate in the restaging of the horrible massacre. “So that what happened is never forgotten,” as a spokeswoman of MST announced.

     

    Meanwhile, the filming of a central part of Antigone in the Amazon is taking place: the dark prophecy of the seer Tiresias about the coming downfall of capitalist society and the necessitiy of resistance. The role of Tiresias is performed by world-famous indigenous philosopher and activist Ailton Krenak, author of Ideas to postpone the end of the world.


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      ANTIGONE IN THE AMAZON COMING SOON   After the productions Orestes in Mosulin the former capital of the Islamic State and the Jesus film The New Gospelin the southern Italian refugee camps, Milo Rau and his team travel to the Amazon in Brazil to conclude their Trilogy of Ancient Myths. On an occupied piece […]


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    “Nothing more monstrous than man”: Milo Rau stages ANTIGONE IN THE AMAZON

     

    ANTIGONE IN THE AMAZON
    COMING SOON

     

    After the productions Orestes in Mosulin the former capital of the Islamic State and the Jesus film The New Gospelin the southern Italian refugee camps, Milo Rau and his team travel to the Amazon in Brazil to conclude their Trilogy of Ancient Myths. On an occupied piece of land, in collaboration with MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra), the world’s largest landless workers’ movement, they create with Antigone in the Amazon an allegorical play about the violent devastations and displacements caused by the modern state.

     

    A Modern Antigone

     

    On 17 April 2023, the largest massacre perpetrated by the Brazilian military police against the MST in 1996 will be re-enacted at the scene of the crime – an occupied highway through the Amazon – as part of the Brazilian premiere of Antigone in the Amazon. The European premiere is scheduled for 13 May at NTGent, Belgium. Indigenous activist Kay Sara will play the role of Antigone, Teiresias will be embodied by South American theatre legend Zé Celso, and the choir will consist of survivors of the massacre.

     

    Connected to the making of Antigone in the Amazon is a political campaign in cooperation with MST and important international non-governmental organisations directed against European multinational companies that shamelessly enrich themselves from the destruction of the Amazon forest. Brazilian director Fernando Nogari, known for his video clips for singer Selena Gomez, provides the video clip for the campaign and a film about the making of Antigone in the Amazon that looks behind the scenes.

     

    All about the play

     

    “There is no profit in this world. There is only life.”
    Kay Sara, protagonist of Antigone in the Amazon

     

    NEWS


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      The decision has been made: Milo Rau is henceforth to be in charge of the Wiener Festwochen in his capacity as Artistic Director. He will take over the artistic direction of the Festival in July 2023, with a contract due to run for a term of five years.   (Wien, 27.01.2023) ‘I am very […]


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    Milo Rau Appointed New Artistic Director of the Wiener Festwochen

     

    The decision has been made: Milo Rau is henceforth to be in charge of the Wiener Festwochen in his capacity as Artistic Director. He will take over the artistic direction of the Festival in July 2023, with a contract due to run for a term of five years.

     

    (Wien, 27.01.2023) ‘I am very pleased that Milo Rau, one of Europe’s leading directors, will be shaping Vienna’s premier festival over the next few years. When it comes to theatre, Milo Rau is someone who knows how to inspire people,’ says Vienna’s City Councillor for Culture. ‘As a politically-minded artist, Milo Rau operates in various fields, from theatre to opera and film, and has excellent international connections. As a result, we now once again have a brilliant artistic personality at the helm of the Wiener Festwochen. Milo Rau was also a convincing choice since, in addition to his own exciting work, he possesses a keen sensitivity for the vast variety of international theatre languages and narrative forms. As a festival, the Wiener Festwochen are all about diversity, and I am certain that Milo Rau with his energy will generate the necessary appeal.’

     

    ‘I don’t know of any other city that is as ardent about theatre as Vienna is, and so I am incredibly excited about my new role,’ responded Milo Rau. ‘I can’t wait to continue the great tradition of the Wiener Festwochen and to create a mythical, powerful and controversial theatre festival. The Festwochen are to be a festival that involves everyone and is for everyone: a world theatre of many voices, formally diverse, passionate and unflinching. A festival for Vienna and for the world.’

     

    Rudolf Scholten, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Wiener Festwochen: ‘Congratulations to Milo Rau! I am looking forward to his artistic direction and his programme with great anticipation. His ambition to engage with Vienna and to showcase a programme that reflects Vienna’s keen desire for theatre while stimulating social discourse whets the appetite. I believe that, under his direction, the Festwochen will not only draw audiences into the theatre but also into debates. Thus, the Festival will no doubt fully fulfil its role as a crucial aspect of the city’s artistic representation.’

     

    About the selection process

     

    Interest in the Wiener Festwochen has been and remains tremendous: following an international invitation, 36 applications were received and considered by the Appointment Committee. The Committee consisted of Karin Bergmann (former director of the Burgtheater, now at the Salzkammergut Festwochen Gmunden), Arne Forke (theatre consultant, office of the city councillor), Rudolf Scholten (chairman of the supervisory board of the Wiener Festwochen), Susanne Moser (artistic director and managing director of the Komische Oper Berlin), Matthias Pees (artistic director of the Berliner Festspiele) and Robert Dressler (head of the Performing Arts Department, Department for Cultural Affairs of the City of Vienna). Six applicants (all of them international, five male, one female) were subsequently invited to the interview stage, with four individual applications and one application as a team of two. The Appointment Committee assessed the excellent candidates and, after good discussions, proposed two candidates to Veronica Kaup-Hasler, in no particular order. The City Councillor for Culture then made the decision in favour of Milo Rau.

     

    Milo Rau was born in Bern in 1977 and studied sociology, Romance languages and literature and German in Paris, Berlin and Zurich. Since 2002 he has produced over 50 plays, films, books and artistic initiatives. His productions have been shown at all major international festivals, including the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Festival d’Avignon, the Venice Theatre Biennale, the Wiener Festwochen and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, and have toured more than 30 countries around the globe. Milo Rau, who has been awarded the European Theatre Prize, among others, has been Artistic Director of NTGent since 2018.

     

    Christophe Slagmuylder remains in charge as Artistic Director of the Wiener Festwochen until 2023, with Milo Rau set to take charge of the 2024 festival edition.

     

    About the Wiener Festwochen: The Wiener Festwochen are one of Europe’s most important interdisciplinary arts and culture festivals. Within Vienna’s cultural offering, the Festival has been presenting the hitherto unseen and unheard since 1951, combining theatre, dance, music, performance, the fine arts, and new art forms. The Festival commissions, initiates and accompanies artistic visions that are engaged with this time, in this world. With its premieres, in-house and co-productions it promotes Vienna’s reputation within the international cultural landscape in its capacity as Austria’s cultural ambassador.