HEIMKEHR — World Premiere and November Tour

Commissioned by the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich (JCOM), Visszaút haza is a melodrama for two narrators and chamber orchestra. Lajos Parti Nagy wrote the text, drawing on Imre Kertész’s novel Fatelessness. Varga’s new score brings his words into a programme about returning home after the world one knew has disappeared.

The evening pairs the new work with Hans Werner Henze’s Der Idiot, a mimodrama with a text by Ingeborg Bachmann after Dostoevsky. Both Henze and Bachmann were born in 1926; the production marks their centenary. Through spoken text and orchestral music, it considers memory, displacement and the possibility of belonging again.

Daniel Grossmann conceived the programme and conducts JCOM. Martin Valdés-Stauber is responsible for the staging. The actors are Kriszta Biró, Károly Hajduk and Martin Weigel. Performances are in German and Hungarian, with surtitles.

Grossmann founded JCOM in 2005. Its musicians come from more than twenty countries, and its work includes new commissions alongside the rediscovery of neglected Jewish composers. The orchestra is resident at the Münchner Kammerspiele, where the tour concludes.

The world premiere takes place at Theater Freiburg, Kleines Haus, on 15 November at 20:00. The November tour then continues to Stuttgart, Bochum, Budapest and Munich. All five dates and the individual event pages are listed below.