Carnival of the Animals

»Honourable members of the audience, ladies and gentlemen, I kid you not: / You’ve dressed up all fine tonight. / You’ve borrowed the penguin’s black tailcoat / And the nail varnish from the golden pheasant. / The third set of teeth from the tick / And the lip gloss from the grapevine snail« – Roger Willemsen’s text to the »Carnival of the Animals« cheekily parodises the audience, thus taking up the original idea of composer Camille Saint-Saëns. For Saint-Saëns actually intended what is often performed as a children’s piece nowadays as a satire on his fellow composers. No lesser a figure than actress Katja Riemann reads the entertaining text (in German) in the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall, accompanied by the piano duo of brothers Arthur and Lucas Jussen.