Performance: Fairground

Location

At night on the fairground, longings are awakened. The uranium miners escape the daily dreariness and backbreaking labour in the funfair and alcoholic excesses. The rollercoaster ride reaches its highest point and the world turns upside down: where should you go with yourself in post-war East Germany? War and fascism have left their mark on the people, material hardship determines their everyday lives, and an authoritarian regime wants to take them over. But they still have dreams.

Werner Bräunig's protagonists search for a place in the world, take on responsibility, develop and yet cannot free themselves from themselves. Due to his unvarnished realism, author Werner Bräunig was targeted by the SED regime. He broke down as a result, but his big question remains: How do people become shapers of society and what does that do to them?

Commissioned by Chemnitz Opera, Ludger Vollmer (composition) and Jenny Erpenbeck (libretto) are adapting the novel Rummelplatz for the opera stage for the first time. The world premiere will be accompanied by the participatory writing workshop ‘Greif zur Feder, Chemnitz! - Pisz, Łódź!’ and the conference “Fairground or Reality?”, which spans the arc from contemporary history to the Capital of Culture year 2025.