Rummelplatz

Location

At night on the fairground, everything comes together: the escape from dreariness and hard work, the unleashing of desires and their anaesthetisation in intoxication. The swing boat is about to roll over, the world is upside down - where are these bismuth miners supposed to go with themselves in post-war East Germany?

East Germany? War and fascism are in their bones, material hardship determines their everyday lives, an authoritarian regime wants to take them over. But they still have dreams. - Werner Bräunig's protagonists search for a place in the world, fall into responsibility and conflict, develop and yet cannot free themselves from themselves. "Rummelplatz" brought Bräunig into conflict with the SED regime. The author was broken by it. His big question remains: How do people become shapers of society? Ludger Vollmer (composition) and Jenny Erpenbeck (libretto) are adapting the work for the opera stage for the first time.