Stifters Dinge

Born in 1952 in a family where making music was second nature, Heiner Goebbels learned to play the piano, guitar and cello and took part in the family's amateur musical trio. In the 1970s, he decided to study sociology, more politically correct than music studies in the context of the period. It was when he discovered the life and work of the composer Hanns Eisler that he understood the political importance that music can bear and that he created a group, “The Supposed Extreme Left-Wing Woodwind Orchestra” which was linked to the protest movements that were developing in Frankfurt. His career as a composer led him to the theatre: he composed incidental music and audio plays based on the texts of Heiner Müller. While working with many directors, in particular Matthias Langhoff, Claus Peymann and Ruth Berghaus, he also composed for dance and cinema and, starting in 1988, for the Ensemble Modern and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. His compositions for large and small ensembles, as for example Surrogate Cities, have been played by many orchestras around the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle. In 1993, he presented the first musical that he directed Or the Disastrous Disembarkment, followed by The Repetition (Die Wiederholung after Kierkegaard and Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1995), Black on White (1996), Max Black (with André Wilms, 1998), Hashirigaki (on the texts of Gertrude Stein, 2000) and Eraritjaritjaka (based on the work of Elias Canetti, 2004). He premiered his first opera Landscape with Distant Relatives in 2002 after having paid tribute to Hanns Eisler with Eislermaterial in 1998. His works are played throughout the world and in particular at a host of festivals (Paris, Edinburgh, Vienna, Istanbul, Bologna, Brussels, Sydney, Singapore, Moscow, New York, Tokyo...) and have been awarded many prizes.
Heiner Goebbels is bringing a creation to the Festival d'Avignon for the first time. He was present at the Festival as the composer for Les
lieux de là (Places from There) by Mathilde Monnier in 1999.



Heiner Goebbels' theatre is unclassifiable, resisting any attempt at definition, any reduction to known and recognized codes. It is however, a theatre that is recognizable among a thousand but always in movement, from one universe to another, following the imagination of its creator, who always makes sure to stay in touch with the realities of the present. With Stifters Dinge, the spectator does not escape this search for a new form based on composite elements that fit together like a giant puzzle. Objects, here five pianos used in a surprising way, sounds, music – from Bach to the chants of Colombian Indians – video images, paintings by Paolo Ucello or Ruisdael, are brought on the stage and mixed, are exchanged, are modified, talk to each other, play together, amuse each other and amuse us, surprise each other and surprise us. Heiner Goebbels, once again, knows better than anyone how to summon the arts, for a gripping tribute to theatre machinery that shifts our view on and our relationship with nature. Here, the theatre is the place where the words of the sociologist, the novelist, particularly those of Adalbert Stifter, the politician, Malcolm X, or the ethnologist join those of the composer, the place where the video-maker fraternizes with the painter. Always under pressure, always in motion, with the minute details that enchant, from one glide to another, it is the world of illusion and trompe l'oeil that appears to us. The imperceptible play of lights that creates a group of disquieting shapes, the perfection of a sound montage that gives all its force to a surprising polyphony. An elegant and refined demiurge, a demanding and meticulous craftsman, a choreographer for unusual objects, a composer for unknown instruments, Heiner Goebbels uses the most sophisticated technologies to serve a thought and an imaginary dimension that he offers as his share to his contemporaries. The live performance that Heiner Goebbels' theatre represents lets us see and hear in another way, sometimes intrigues us but never leaves us indifferent.

avec la Chartreuse de Villeneuve lez Avignon
conception, musique et mise en scène: Heiner Goebbels
scénographie, lumière et vidéo: Klaus Grünberg
collaboration à la musique, programmation: Hubert Machnik
création espace sonore: Willi Bopp
assistant et régie musicale: Matthias Mohr
régisseur général: Marc Moureaux
robotique: Thierry Kaltenrieder
régisseurs lumière: Roby Carruba, Mattias Bovard
régisseurs vidéo: Jérôme Vernez, Sébastien Baudet
régie son: Andrew Mikkelsen
régisseurs plateau: Fabio Gaggetta, Pierre Kissling
direction technique Michel Beuchat avec la collaboration artistique et technique de l'équipe du Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne
producteur délégué: Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne

coproduction: spielzeit'europa | Berliner Festpiele, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, schauspielfrankfurt, T & M – Théâtre de Genevilliers Centre dramatique national, Pour-cent culturel Migros, Teatro Stabile di Torino
coréalisateur: Artangel London
avec le soutien: de Pro Helvetia - Fondation suisse pour la culture