Portrait Olga Neuwirth
Olga Neuwirth is one of the leading woman composers of our time. She draws inspiration for her work from the worlds of literature, film, science and social policy. Her extensive oeuvre includes great orchestral pieces, music theatre, ensemble, solo and chamber music works, radio and film music, experimental and animated films, texts, photographs and two books.
Her intensive engagement with other art forms comes through in a number of her works and often leads to successful partnerships with artists in other fields. Her collaboration with the Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek spans almost three decades, and has resulted in several works of music theatre, audio pieces and short films.
Neuwirth’s work is characterised by unusual instrumental and electronic sound combinations. Musical ruptures, quotations and references are subtly combined with an enigmatic sense of humour. The composer virtuosically turns our established habits of perception on their head, creating thrilling, constantly changing music that never falls on indifferent ears.
Olga Neuwirth is currently working on »Orlando«, a new opera for the Vienna State Opera. Her new music for the restored edition of the rediscovered silent film »The City Without Jews« is being premiered in November 2018. And with the fantastic music theatre piece »Le encantadas« and a new version of »The Outcast«, two of her most important recent works are performed at the Elbphilharmonie.
Both works bear witness to an intensive engagement with the great American writer Hermann Melville, whose work – with the notable exception of »Moby Dick« – remains largely unknown. The composer is interested not only in the writer’s biography, but in his visionary social criticism: Melville thematised the transformation of the workplace and the effects of industrialisation on the oceans back in the nineteenth century. In Neuwirth’s homage, elements of the oratorio, performance, film and installation fuse into a contemporary engagement with the music theatre genre. It constitutes the highlight of the portrait that is dedicated to her at the Elbphilharmonie this season and as part of the »Greatest Hits« festival at Kampnagel.
