Die arabische Nacht
VISION OF THE WORK
The Arabian Night
Opera based on the play of the same name by Roland Schimmelpfennig
Christian Jost’s second opera is based on a contemporary text: Roland Schimmelpfennig’s play tells the story of five lonely people on a sultry night in the city. Somewhere in an anonymous high-rise complex, the world is falling apart. Water seems to be disappearing on the seventh floor, even though it can be heard rushing throughout the building. Caretaker Lomeier makes his way to the floor where friends Franziska and Fatima live. He is not the only one drawn to this apartment; Fatima’s boyfriend Kalil and neighbour Karpati are also on their way there. When the moon rises on this unbearably hot night, reality is turned upside down: one protagonist finds himself in a bottle of cognac, another in the middle of the desert, and a third gets stuck in the lift. What is dream and what is reality?
Roland Schimmelpfennig’s template for my opera DIE
ARABISCHE NACHT (The Arabian Night) is, for me, a somnambulistic masterpiece.
In a light, surreal guise, we experience the dreams and nightmares of five lonely, lovesick city dwellers who, interwoven in an apartment complex and confused by the constant sound of water, give free rein to their desires.
I had to compose a polyphonic, swinging ensemble work from it. A piece that, once begun, makes everything flow, blossom and fade away, only to be reborn again. I have interwoven the characters, each of whom offers a high degree of identification potential, in such a way that they can indulge in their own (nightmare) dreams in the flow of musical events. In order to hint at the ‘enchantment in everyday life’ musically, I decided on a divided orchestra consisting of 18 musicians. This creates a kind of ‘sound arena,’ which I have already used for my odyssey for clarinet and orchestra, HEART OF DARKNESS.