Die Vögel

"The Birds", Walter Braunfels' main musical work, is a tonally enchanting fairy-tale opera in the tradition of Wagner and Strauss and was a box-office magnet until it was banned by the Nazis. Braunfels adapted a comedy by Aristophanes in which the birds build a cloud-cuckoo land and defeat the gods. Unlike the ancient poet, Braunfels chose a tragic ending under the impression of the Soviet Republic in Munich in 1919. Zeus destroys the city in a storm, the old order triumphs. And it is two frivolous demagogues, Ratefreund and Hoffegut, who use flattery to seduce the naive birds into a coup. With the bad end, the two people disappear back into their world, and the deluge follows them.

The multi-award-winning Ersan Mondtag tells this parable about populist seducers and the damage they cause at an airport with references to contemporary political events. Set somewhere between chicken frying and the dream of flying, the seduced here are the weird birds who still enthusiastically follow the promises of propaganda today. Braunfels' sound spectacle of beautiful bird arias is given a highly topical interpretation in this spectacular realisation.