Prometheus

For Beethoven, Prometheus embodied the Enlightenment, the liberation of humanity from self-imposed immaturity. Romantic composers such as Liszt focused more on themes of guilt, punishment and redemption of the god chained to a rock by Zeus. For the synesthete Scriabin, it was the element of fire itself that proved most compelling. As violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja demonstrates in an original concert format, the myth can also be interpreted differently: as an archetypal fall from grace like that of Adam and Eve, as a loss of innocence or as human hubris culminating in war and environmental destruction. Luigi Nono brought all these and many other aspects together in his epochal experimental music theatre work »Prometeo« – a fusion of concert and sound installation with instruments and singers distributed throughout the space, and a philosophical-artistic reflection on humanity, social utopias, failure and hope.