Abstract
We begin this chapter by considering what makes a production recognisably a Barrie Kosky production. We then frame Kosky’s work as transnational, not only in terms of bringing together influences and personnel from different national cultures on stage, but of throwing the nation into question and exposing the transnational within the national, off stage as well as on. We set this engagement with the transnational in the context of a dominant strand of German theatre history that saw theatre as a means of shaping the nation, and also within an often-overlooked strand of Australian theatre history. We then discuss the practical steps that the Komische Oper Berlin has taken under Kosky’s leadership to engage with multicultural Berlin, and the ways in which Kosky invites his audiences to continue to engage with the themes raised in his productions after the theatre event, whether through reflection and processing or practical action. We end with a description of the book’s structure and content.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Homi Bhabha has proposed that the “transnational histories of migrants, the colonized, or political refugees […] may be the terrains of world literature”, reducible to neither “the ‘sovereignty’ of national cultures, nor the universalism of human culture” (1994, p. 17).
- 3.
For extended discussion of Kosky’s and Kats-Chernin’s work on the Monteverdi Trilogy , see Severn (2021b). Other operas with unusual instrumentation commissioned by the Komische Oper Berlin during Kosky’s time as Intendant but not directed by him personally include the children’s operas Ali Baba und die 40 Räuber [Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves] (2012) with music by Taner Akyol, and Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten [The Musicians of Bremen] (2017) with music by Attila Kadri Şendil. These operas have bilingual librettos in German and Turkish, and their orchestras include Turkish instruments: for Ali Baba, the asma davul (a drum), kaval (an end-blown flute), zurna (a woodwind reed instrument) and bağlama (a long-necked lute), for The Musicians of Bremen the zurna, bağlama, oud and kanun (a form of zither) (Komische Oper Berlin 2018, pp. 49–52, 73–75). For further discussion of Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten , see Stone 2021.
- 4.
The theatre, for Friedrich Schiller, is a national institution in this sense. In the address he delivered in Mannheim in 1784 Schiller revises Montesquieu’s doctrine of the separation of powers to call the theatre an equiprimordial institution of the state. And while a national theatre in the late eighteenth century faced as yet neither a national executive, a national legislature nor a national judiciary whose excesses it could be relied upon to check, Schiller urges that it be treated as a court in which the powerful lose the immunity they otherwise enjoy (1822, p. 42). Schiller’s theatre thus fills the gap opened up by the dysfunction of the Reichskammergericht of the Holy Roman Empire where appeals against regional judgements routinely struggled to receive a hearing. Unrecognised in the political structure of the Empire, the theatre grounds its claim to higher authority by siding with the nation that derives its shape and substance from justice (it is not a given, but rather a norm).
- 5.
Theodor Siebs, who compiled the volume Deutsche Bühnenaussprache following the conference, boosts what he sees as the extra-theatrical benefits (1898, pp. 8–12).
- 6.
A German linguistic purist who, for example, resolved to avoid words of foreign provenance would lapse into silence. A notoriously fatuous attempt in this direction, Percy Grainger’s “blue-eyed English” had by necessity to be half-hearted in applying its criteria for exclusion, since it would otherwise fail to come up with any list of acceptable words.
- 7.
For example, fourteen Chinese opera companies were in operation in Victoria between 1850 and 1870 (Zhengting 2012, p. 4). For further details on Chinese opera companies in the nineteenth-century Australian colonies and after Federation, see Rocke (2021) and Williams (2021). For Japanese acrobatic troupes in late nineteenth-century Australasia, see Sissons (1999). As the world’s wealthiest city, Gold-Rush-era Melbourne attracted Europe’s biggest stars, among them the Italian actress Adelaide Ristori and the French actress Sarah Bernhardt, both of whom performed in their native languages to appreciative audiences. For an account of Ristori’s Australian tour, see Mitchell 1995a, 1995b. For Bernhardt’s Australian tour, see Fraser (1998).
- 8.
See the review in the weekly Tasmanian (27 December 1833) included in Love 1984, pp. 24–25. Kotzebue’s drama received its premiere in Tallinn, Estonia in 1788 and was to remain a staple of the German-language stage for the next half century.
- 9.
For discussion of the revival of jazz operetta and the challenges this poses, see Severn (2021a).
- 10.
For details of the creation of The Wilderness Room , see Richards and Prior 2002. Radic’s reference to all Kosky’s work drawing on Jewish tradition and practices is not borne out by fact. As well as early productions such as Macbeth , Orfeo and La Calisto , a survey of high-profile works directed by Kosky prior to Radic’s 1994 review—such as The Knot Garden for the Spoleto Festival (1989), The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville for Victorian State Opera (1991), Oedipus Rex for Opera Queensland (1993), Faust, Parts 1 and 2 for Melbourne Theatre Company (1993), The Oresteia for Victorian State Opera (1993)—shows that much of his work was not overtly Jewish in theme.
- 11.
For extended details of Selam Opera!, see the essays in Komische Oper (2014).
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Phillips, J., Severn, J.R. (2021). It Begins with the Theatre: Barrie Kosky’s Workshop. In: Phillips, J., Severn, J.R. (eds) Barrie Kosky’s Transnational Theatres. Global Germany in Transnational Dialogues. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75028-2_1
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