On Saturday evening, director Pierre Audi immersed the Danube in a sea of colour, light and music in order to breathe new life into the oldest history of mankind for this year’s Klangwolke in Linz. The 5,000 year old Gilgamesh epic was told by “Mother Gilgamesh”. Sunnyi Melles completely immersed himself in this role. According to the Brucknerhaus, 80,000 visitors in the Danube Park applauded them and the production.
This year, the umbrella and rain protection were added to the standard equipment for the visitors, folding chairs and blankets. It was still raining in Linz in the followingnoon, but it stayed dry in the evening. At 8:30 p.m., a formation of light drones rose above the Danube near the Brucknerhaus to open the almost hour-long spectacle. After the prologue, six scenes on the “Towerboat”, the “Templeboat” and the “Forrestboat” showed how the overpowering tyrant Gilgamesh became a loving friend of Enkidu. Together they destroy the cedar forest and with it nature. As punishment, the gods take Gilgamesh’s friend, who then seeks immortality in order to be able to meet Enkidu once more.
The story was staged with impressive show elements, such as the wild fight between two stuntmen on flyboards. Or the ships sometimes appeared in bright, sometimes in threatening colors in order to visualize the mood of the story. The impression was reinforced by the sound of Stefan Gregory, who created a music collage from his own compositions, from jazz and works by Prokofiev, Sibelius and Anton Bruckner. The fine voices of 40 Florian Boys’ Choir were moving.
And above all, as a mother, Melles held her hand protectively when her face appeared oversized on the video tower of the “Temple Boat” and she spoke to the banks of the Danube. The texts for her specially created role come from dramaturge Klaus Bertisch in order to “quickly bring the oldest surviving epic to new life in a modern way”. Director Audi managed to do this in a quite spectacular way on Saturday evening.
