Music & Poetry

The programme series Music & Poetry introduces you to the heterogeneity of Bregenz Festival: Multifarious combinations of chamber music and literature open up surprising perspectives.

Honour – The Offended Self

"Sing, goddess, the anger of Achilles". This is the first line of Homer’s Iliad, one of the world’s oldest literary texts. Why, though, is Achilles, the nearly invulnerable hero, angry? Because Achilles feels dishonoured by King Agamemnon. Giuseppe Verdi’s Ernani also deals with honour, bruised egos and narcissistic injuries. Even Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly returns to the archaic world of the Japanese Samurai at the end of the opera. Her attempt of becoming American fails. "Death with honour is better than life with dishonour". Although times and cultures have changed, the concept of honour seems to have stayed the same. Michael Köhlmeier, who was born in Vorarlberg, looks into this anthropological constant during his evening about honour. 

Works by Franz Liszt and others

Brecht – "And a ship with eight sails"

Bertolt Brecht was an all-rounder: a poet, an avowed Communist, founder of the Epic theatre – and a songwriter. Together with the composers Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill, he produced classics, among them catchy-tunes such as the Alabama Song or Pirate Jenny from the play The Threepenny Opera. Less of the ideals of the bourgeoisie and more of the language of music; a language that is artistic but also reaches the masses. The evening with the French soprano Roxane Choux invites the audience to wallow in a selection of popular as well as unknown songs. Luzian Hirzel, who is an ensemble member of the Vorarlberger Landestheater, recites Brecht. 

Works by Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill