Zemlinsky - Theater in the Josefstadt

A commissioned work of the Zemlinsky Fund. Make sure someone brings my ashes to Vienna. As a composer, he was a pioneer, an open mind who connected different styles, embodying the artistic spirit of the turn of the century. The musical greats of his time found inspiration in his music and acknowledged him as a significant composer. Creating equally important works in the shadow of great personalities, without receiving the public recognition he struggled for throughout his life, remained Alexander Zemlinsky's constant fate. Forced into American exile by war and displacement, he increasingly fell into artistic lethargy in the final years of his life.

Alexander Zemlinsky's posthumous return to Vienna is the starting point for the search for traces of a man whose struggle with his own fate increasingly defined his existence. Felix Mitterer, with his piece written in 2021 on the occasion of the 150th birthday of this essential yet almost forgotten composer, creates a multifaceted psychological portrait that skillfully connects temporal, spatial, and emotional levels through snapshots of decisive encounters, thus bringing to the stage the atmosphere of the Viennese cultural scene at the turn of the century, surrounding Alma Mahler, Franz Werfel, Arnold Schönberg, and Richard Gerstl.