A three-part ballet evening with music by three composers who counted among the avant-garde artists of their day: Hector Berlioz, Claude Debussy und Igor Stravinsky. From Roméo et Juliette, the unexpectedly successful "Symphonie dramatique" that Berlioz completed in 1839, Sasha Waltz has choreographed the major love scene between the protagonists, which features delicate sound and multifarious orchestration. Debussy is represented with his Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, about which Pierre Boulez said, "the flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music".

Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps, however, was far more spectacular than this artful but rather fragile composition: its Paris debut in May 1913, realised by the legendary ensemble of the Ballets Russes, created a veritable theatre scandal. The unleashed power of the rhythmic, both in music and in dance, bothered quite a few people, as did the intensity of the sounds generated by the gigantic orchestral apparatus. Nonetheless, the audience became witnesses to the birth of a truly »New Music«, which has since repeatedly shown its vitality. First performed exactly a century after the world premiere, Sasha Waltz’s choreography of Stravinsky’s exceptional piece has an impressive elementary impact and elementary expressiveness of dance.


L’aprés-midi d'un faune (1894)
Music by Claude Debussy

Scéne d'amour
Music by Hector Berlioz from Roméo et Juliette (1839)

Le sacre du printemps (1913)
Music by Igor Stravinsky