Friends Hans Neuenfels Thank you, Bernhard Paumgartner! Invisible Woman Macbeth Fall of the Gods Jenufa Lady Macbeth Schostakowitsch Ariadne auf Naxos Le Nozze di Figaro Così fan tutte Don Carlo, Falstaff Die Fledermaus Concert 2001 Narrated Music Shir Ha Shirim Notes Paumgartner Musically insured who am i...?

Hans Neuenfels

NAPLES OR THE JOURNEY TO STUTTGART

"Do you think that Zurich
is a more intense city for instance,
where miracles and consecrations
are the order of the day?"

This is the opening line in a poem by Gottfried Benn and Zurich is the anchor for a metaphor about the longing for fulfilment, the search for identity, about newly gained and lost experience, about hope for change, a journey around and to oneself, and he creates a location that could be exchanged for any other.

In Naples or the Journey to Stuttgart there are two places which, through the mutual friction of their asserted reflection, determine the actual location: the emotional thought world of a woman, whose strictly ordered life is suddenly opened up like a package sent off long ago.

Katharina Studer, resident in Stuttgart, married to an insurance salesman, mother of two sons, aged seventeen and nineteen, travels to Naples with her husband, in reminiscence of a journey they had undertaken decades ago. There it happened: while breakfasting on the terrace of their hotel Katharina comes out with the statement, "It is just as ugly and noisy as at home!"

Katharina creates space for herself from her clogged up silence like a cork exploding from a bottle that has constantly been shaken up. She writes a letter to her friend Charlotte. Although the two women are neighbours they have not met each other for thirty years.
It had all started when Ferdinand, the younger of Katharina's two sons had thrown a stone and smashed the panorama window of their living room.

The broken glass represents what had been an apparently harmonious life. These wounds will also severely sharpen Katharina's way of looking at the world. From the shock of endangering alleged securities grows the challenge and the ability to trace interfamily taboo zones with seismographic precision.

Katharina's observation is heightened to absurdity, as far as the fantastic wit that helps to escape the stifling reality by drawing breath.

Scenic recitation

Sunday, 5 August 8 p.m.
Zeitfluss Tent, Volksgarten
Elisabeth Trissenaar reads and plays Naples or the Journey to Stuttgart by Hans Neuenfels

Free entrance slips are available from the advance booking office in the Schüttkasten.

Elisabeth Trissenaar and Hans Neuenfels are also
the guests of Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler on
23 August at 3.30 p.m. in the Schüttkasten.

Elisabeth Trissenaar und Hans Neuenfels Photo: Gerhard Koller