Prometheus / Egmont
Live Video Show, 2017 – 2018

Music: Ludwig van Beethoven
Text: Christopher Hampton after Goethe, Ovid, Shelley, Lord Byron a. o.
Musical direction: Martin Haselböck Orchestra Wiener Akademie
With: Sebastian Koch, Marie Arnet
Direction and dramaturgy: Alexander Wiegold
Stage: Vanessa Eder-Messutat
Costume: Birgit Hutter
Video: Etzgerei Visual Design
Video technology: Florian Gruber
Lighting technology: Ellen Paget

This theater evening combines two well-known stories of rebellion and freedom struggle, the myth about Prometheus and the history about the Flemish Count Egmont.

With the symbolic fire, the mythical Prometheus brought mankind the power of thought, the ability to self-knowledge and thus the liberation from the arbitrariness of the gods. This motif continues in Egmont, where he stood for the freedom of the oppressed Dutch with his life and thereby brought down an autocracy. Both figures breathe the spirit of the Enlightenment, both sacrifice themselves for the liberation of mankind from its immaturity.

Today, over 200 years later, we seem to be moving back into this immaturity: liberal values ​​and human rights are considered to be virtue terrorists and autocrats are increasingly determining the fate of the world. So it is a good time to think back on the fight for freedom with Beethoven and Goethe as a never-ending human project and to reflect on where we are today.