Wolfgang RIHM – Dionysos: a writing on inner spaces

Abstract

Dionysos -- Scenes and Dithyrambs based on texts by Friedrich Nietzsche an opera fantasy for vocal soloists, choir and orchestra by the German composer Wolfgang Rihm (1953-) is a non-narrative operatic work: an anti-narrative open music theater piece in multiple dimensions, consisting of scenes and dithyrambs on four levels or "places". Open music scenes refer to important moments of F. Nietzsche's life (without narrating a story) and above all to the universal ideas of his philosophy.

The composing process--Rihm simultaneously writes the music, text and scenic frames– is a continuous invention of multiple and polyvalent musical languages without a preliminary text to be set to music and without a music composition to accompany a dramatic scene. The libretto is a free composition by Rihm taken from fragments of several texts by Nietzsche.

If the scenes or sets of the « opera fantasy are « the recipients » (RIHM) for multiple scenic-musical developments, the characters are flexible spaces, moving and varying, having plural roles in constant transformation. The boundaries between the characters–as well as the boundaries between the texts, styles, and scenic situations–become permeable and fluid, yet the lead roles are still easily recognizable as they preserve their familiar integrity in all situations.

The processes of the vegetative composition, of metabolic integration of citations with their references to styles and distant times, and the imagistic bontanical metaphors Rihm often employs, confirm his affiliation to the great Western tradition, which is in constant search for organic unity of the overall work despite free associations in the movement of thought. Using only texts from the works of Nietzsche and being strongly influenced by his thoughts, Rihm proposes an innovative scenic-musical interpretation of Nietzsche’s phenomenon, which remains inevitably marked by the great Western Christian tradition.

English version: Kathleen S. Martin