2009

This year’s Melbourne International Arts Festival opens with the groundbreaking dance-opera Medea – a production by German star choreographer and dancer Sasha Waltz. Staged in 2008 at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, it is Waltz’s second choreographic opera. Now for the first time, the production will be presented in Australia as one of the highlights of the International Arts Festival.

Waltz’s choreographic-musical exploration of Medea is based on Pascal Dusapin’s opera »Medeamaterial« and texts by Heiner Müller. Medea, a tragic figure, murders her brother, her lover’s wife and her own children. Medea is a myth about revenge and betrayal, of love and jealousy. Waltz cleverly unites the ancient and the contemporary. Her Medea is both, an ancient and modern figure - a creative and at the same time destructive character. Investigating this mythic material has allowed Sasha Waltz to bring all her artistic capabilities into play.

Coloratura soprano Caroline Stein plays the role of Medea. Her voice is supported by Vocalconsort Berlin and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. 17 dancers of Sasha Waltz’s company revive the myth, make visible the antic world, the tragedy of Medea.

‘Die Welt‘ raves about Sasha Walt’z ability to “create a symbiosis between music, singing and dance. One very nearly forgets that ‘choreographic opera’ is virgin territory, that she is in the process of inventing the drama”.

An event surely not to be missed.