SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5

HELLERAU
DRESDEN, GERMANY

Duration 1 hour 40 minutes

Director Maxim Didenko

Premiere took place on 24 September 2020

Music by Vladimir Rannev
Text version Johannes Kirsten
Stage design, costumes, lighting design AJ Weissbard
Choreography Vladimir Varnava
Video design Oleg Mikhailov
Musical direction Olaf Katzer

Design and stage design assistance

Sasha Kuznetsova, Filippo Moretti
Actor Wolf-Dieter Gööck

Dancer ensemble
Aleksandr Chelidze, Amy Schönheit, Aya Sone, Donna-Mae Burrows, Leon Damm, Rodolfo Piazza Pfitscher da Silva, Yasmin Schönmann, Charles Washington

Singers

AuditivVokal Dresden
Alexander Bischoff, Anne Stadler, Dorothea Wagner, Felix Schwandtke, Katharina Salden, Konrad Furian, Philipp Schreyer, Stefan Kunath

Project management Tristan Production Isolde Matkey

Technical management/collaboration light design Ted Meier

Assistant director Ekaterina Didenko
Rehearsal assistant Alba Maria Thomas Alvarez
Assistant AuditivVokal Nicole Meier

Collaboration costume Michael Wolf, Dennis Schmidt

Dressing Sybille Rauchfuß, Karin Krüger (Atelier MASSIVE)

We especially thank our technical supporters

The company Neumann & Müller GmbH & Co KG, Mr. Omar Samhoun, for provision of the Timax acoustic positioning and matrix system. The company Studt – Akustik Dresden, Dipl. Ing. H.-P. Studt, for provision of the loudspeaker systems

Sound engineer Helge Petzold

Installation and operator of the acoustic positioning system Omar Samhoun, Alexander Nickol, Robert Schöne

Support wireless technology Sebastian Rietz

Video technology Johannes Petzold

Kurt Vonnegut writes about the horror of war, and about how memory works. “Slaughterhouse-Five” is collage, satire, autobiography, and science fiction all at once: the narrative skips between times, and personal experience fuses with invention.

In 1944, Vonnegut, a young American soldier, was taken prisoner and sent to Dresden. He survived the raids of February 13th and 14th, 1945, in the cellars of Slaughterhouse 5. The novel, published in 1969, became a cult book. How do we remember war? Which experiences become cultural memory? Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War, those questions feel more pressing than ever. Both the Nazis and the G.D.R. put the night of the bombing to political use, and the “Dresden myth” is still being spun. Against the appropriation of the memorial by neo-nationalists and right-wing populists, a broad civic alliance of residents, parties, institutions, and organizations has formed in the city.

Into this climate, the Russian director Maxim Didenko brought a new stage version of “Slaughterhouse-Five,” which opened in September 2020 at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, in Dresden. He was after a contemporary way of looking at Vonnegut’s text, at the city’s culture of remembrance, and at the Dresden myth. The result is multimedia music theatre somewhere between drama, dance, music, and performance, with performers, dancers, and singers onstage. Vladimir Rannev’s score, written for the production, is played live by AuditivVokal Dresden. Didenko developed the choreography for the nine-strong ensemble with Vladimir Varnava. For the space, the artist and lighting designer AJ Weissbard draws on the natural-light concept of the Festspielhaus Hellerau’s founding years; the video art is by Oleg Mikhailov.

A co-production of tristan Production and HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts.

Supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation as well as by the state capital Dresden, the Office for Culture and Monument Protection and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.