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Official
Site
Palazzo
Zenobio
Director
The
movie
The
Alma's life
Production: Paulus Manker
Mobile: +43 - 664 - 160 77 99 E-Mail: paulusmanker@compuserve.com
Public Relations: Elke Hesse
Tickets: +43/1/96 0 96
Mobile: +43 - 676 - 420 40 94
E-Mail: elke.hesse@chello.at
- An extravagant, lovingly detailed theatre production, deeply moving!
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This production has a magical fullness and is gloriously wild and vulgar!
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If you can, try to see "Alma" at least 3 times so as not to miss a single
scene -
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Passionate, colourful and multi-layered! -
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You can move from one salon to another; Mahler dies at half-time; the
funeral banquet can be followed interactively to his symphonic music;
and the spectator is invited to a sumptuous buffet-dinner -
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A fantastic idea and a fantastic interpretation; a production which opens
heart and senses -
Alma
young
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"Alma
a Venezia" is a theatrical journey in the footsteps of a woman, Alma Mahler-Gropius-Kokoschka-Werfel,
who travelled through the first half of the 20th century, experiencing
passionate encounters and separations from people who enriched the body
of human heritage.
Alma Mahler-Werfel
was the last femme fatale, bringing together the greatest creative spirits
of her time. Contemporaries disrespectfully called her "The Widow of the
4 Arts", referring to music, architecture, painting and literature: this
was a hand with four aces. The composer Gustav Mahler died of having loved
her too much, painter Oskar Kokoschka was unable to get over losing her
his whole life long, architect Walter Gropius was a plaything in her hands,
and poet Franz Werfel wrote: "She is one of the very few magical women
who exist!".
Come and be a guest at Alma Mahler-Werfel's birthday party. She invites
you to her beautiful Venetian Palazzo where you will be welcomed by the
tunes of Viennese fin-de-siècle music, cocktails will be offered, and
you will get a sweet Viennese pastry as welcome gift. Make the acquaintance
of all Alma's lovers and husbands as they appear as guests of honour:
the great painter Gustav Klimt, who was the first man to kiss her, the
composer Alexander Zemlinsky, her piano teacher and fervent lover, Alma's
husbands, architect Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus movement,
and poet Franz Werfel, writer of novels such as "The Song of Bernadette".
And last but not least, the great surprise of the evening will be announced:
the arrival of famous composer Gustav Mahler, Alma's first husband.
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Click
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At
the climax of the party, the story splits up into several different threads
of events. And now it's up to the audience to make their choice and follow
one of the characters, embarking on an exciting journey through Alma's
life, which is enacted as a unique piece of synchronous theatre on all
the floors and throughout all the rooms of the building. You get the chance
to abandon the immobilized position of the conventional-drama spectator
and replace it with the mobile activity of a traveller. You become a road
companion to the travelling characters of the journey drama, choosing
the events, the path and the person to follow after each event, thus constructing
your own personal version of a Polydrama.
"Alma a Venezia" is a Polydrama in the sense that it consists of several
interwoven threads of events taking place and being acted out simultaneously
in various spaces. The locations are spread all over the house. The characters
of the play guide you through times and spaces. The play describes a period
from 1901 to the present day. In pursuit of the many lives of Alma and
her husbandsand lovers, you circulate through the whole building, its
interiors fitted out superbly in period style, through rustic kitchens
with steaming soup, elegant salons with grand pianos, austere bathing
cellars and Italian cafés. Everywhere, amidst hundreds of dripping candles,
unfold new, astonishing scenes and arrangements. "Alma a Venezia" abandons
the well-trodden ground of the conflict-and-situation-based drama to explore
the possibilities of a journey-drama, in which the protagonist is not
trapped and involved in only one plot and one conflict, but is travelling
along an open road, falling in and out of love with people as they appear
and disappear, intersecting for a moment the traveller's trajectory.
You
are a camera. It is your perspective that creates the show. Focus on a
character who interests you and follow them. Following them throughout
the evening will transform that character into your protagonist. Yet you
can change characters, and create a mosaic of your own in this complex
Polydrama. If you come with friends, it is good to split up and observe
different events and scenes. At the end of the evening you can experience
the job of a film editor and combine experiences of your own with those
of your "fellow-cameras".
You can move and
change your point of view during the scenes, and even choose the distance
from the object on which you are focusing. You can choose your angles
of shooting and move during a take, panning, dollying and zooming in and
out. Throughout the whole evening, the audience is invited to make use
of all their senses: vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste. Reactions are
to be provoked, associations evoked, and thoughts stimulated.
The first part of the theatrical journey climaxes in a tribute to the
genius of Gustav Mahler. To the tunes of his 5th Symphony, all groups
of the Polydrama are reunited in an impressive procession to witness Mahler's
funeral in Vienna in 1911. Instead of an intermission, the guests are
then invited to a sumptuous buffet-dinner (included in the ticket prize)
in Alma's festive dining room, illuminated by hundreds of candles and
torch lights. Various delicacies will be served, including famous dishes
from Alma's time, and a variety of exquisite Austrian pastries. The world-class
traditional Viennese cuisine, the service, and the ambience make this
"mourner's meal" a truly memorable experience.
Take a journey from fin-de-siècle Vienna to World War I, from Gustav Mahler's
funeral in Vienna to Alma's beautiful Palazzo in Venice. Accompany Alma
and Franz Werfel on their honeymoon trip to Palestine, and be a road companion
on her way to exile in the USA. Witness Franz Werfel's death in California
and sit side to side with Gustav Mahler on Sigmund Freud 's psychoanalytical
couch. Watch Alma's love nights with Walter Gropius in Berlin and Oskar
Kokoschka's desperation in Dresden, where he creates a life-size Alma
doll and invites everybody to join an extravagant masked ball in honour
of the doll. Because of the nature of the Polydrama, it is both physically
and conceptually composed of events which are interrelated but do not
have to be watched in a chronological order. Certain events can be left
out, others will be inserted, as the personal interest of each visitor
requires.
"Alma a Venezia" reveals an intimate picture of creative life in Europe
between the wars, bringing close to the spectator the drama of a rich
culture moving to its dissolution. But, above all, it is the personal
story of one woman's incomparable gift for living. Alma's men would have
undoubtedly lived on without her: Gustav Mahler in his symphonies, Walter
Gropius in his steel constructions, Franz Werfel in his novels, and Oskar
Kokoschka in his untamed painting, for each of them was a creative genius.
Alma, on the other hand, would be forgotten today were it not for her
men. She only left any mark because, as she expressed it herself, she
held "for an instant the stirrups of her glorious knights".
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 ALMA
MAHLER-WERFEL (1879 - 1964) Born in Vienna, in 1879, Alma grew up in a
privileged environment. GUSTAV KLIMT, co-founder of the Viennese Sezession
and brilliant Jugendstil painter, used to be in and out of her parents'
house, stealing a very first kiss from her, while composer ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY
was her composition tutor and became her first lover. "The most beautiful
girl in Vienna", they called Alma. And few women have ever become so deeply
involved with so many famous men as her. Alma took a bold step, causing
a sensation in the Vienna of the day when in 1902 she married GUSTAV MAHLER
who, as Director of the Royal Opera, held one of the most powerful positions
in the Viennese music scene. The price she paid was high. She had to give
up her own artistic aspirations, and the desire to become a composer herself
was nipped in the bud. Alma gave Mahler two daughters, one of whom died
young, while the other, Anna, became a sculptress. After eight years of
marriage, in 1910, Alma sought consolation for all her years of disappo intment
in the arms of the young German architect WALTER GROPIUS who, with the
Bauhaus movement, later had a major impact on modern architecture. The
two became utterly absorbed in unbridled nights of love. The result of
this was an encounter between Gustav Mahler and SIGMUND FREUD, who was
consulted by Mahler after the revelation of the relationship between Alma
and Gropius. Mahler died shortly afterwards, in 1911. In 1912 Alma began
a passionate affair with the enfant terrible of the Viennese art scene,
the young painter OSKAR KOKOSCHKA. Apart from countless paintings and
drawings which testify to this anguished relationship, there was also
a saucy life-size doll, a faithful reproduction of Alma down to the most
intimate details, which Kokoschka had made in 1919 in order to console
himself for the loss of his loved one. Alma's next marriage was to Walter
Gropius. During all the years in which he was revolutionizing the world
of architecture, she remained at his side. Yet neither did this liaison
endure. After she had given birth to the beautiful, short-lived daughter
MANON, the once so passionate relationship ended in agony and alienation.
At the age of 50, Alma was married a third time to Jewish poet FRANZ WERFEL,
author of the novels "The Song of Bernadette" and "The 40 days of Musa
Dagh", as well as successful theatre plays such as "Jacobowsky and the
Colonel". Werfel saw in Alma his saviour, a goddess whom he was allowed
to worship. The burning of his works, followed the seizing of power by
the Nazis, forced Werfel into exile with Alma in the USA. Settling in
Hollywood, he was to die there in 1945. In 1952 Alma Mahler-Werfel retired
to New York, where she stayed to spend the last years of her life. There
she exposed all the trophies she had collected throughout her life: paintings
of Oskar Kokoschka, scores of Gustav Mahler, manuscripts of Franz Werfel,
and fervent love letters of Walter Gropius. On December 11th 1964, Alma
died in her apartment in Manhattan. |
