Saturday night saw the German Premiere of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ at Belvedere Palace, Weimar, directed by Jochen Biganzoli by Studierende Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar under conductor, Márton Terts.
The performance was part of their LANGE NACHT DES MUSIKTHEATERS IN BELVEDERE; an event between the Institut für Gesang | Musiktheater - Institut für Alte Musik and Bauhaus-Universität Weimar: Fakultät Architektur und Urbanistik, Fakultät Medien, which included opera, sculpture, architecture, theatre, dance and more.
Heike Neugebauer, Grace-Evangeline Mason, Jochen Biganzoli, Dr. Kerstin Schuessler-Bach
The Yellow Wallpaper
Written and premiered in 2016 by the Helios Collective at English National Opera’s Lilian Baylis House, London, as well as receiving its Canadian Premiere in Montreal by 23DegreeTheatre in 2019, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is a chamber opera in one act based on the story of the same name by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). The story is centered on a nameless young woman’s descent into psychosis as her mental health issues, namely post-natal depression, are left misunderstood.
The woman and her physician husband, John, move into a spacious and airy mansion, which he believes will help her health to improve by undergoing the rest cure; a common treatment developed in the late 1800s for the handling of hysteria and other nervous illnesses. With nothing to stimulate her mind, the woman becomes growingly obsessed with the yellow, distressed wallpaper that covers the room and her imagination begins to run wild as she starts to believe it is moving and coming alive. As her fascination with the wallpaper spirals out of control, so does her quest to break free.' ©G.E.M.2016
Photo: Thomas Lippick
There were three performances of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ given by two casts of singers:
The Woman: Dzhuletta Gulau, Thora Runhilde Müller
John: Axel Miranda Gutierrez, Heesung Hoang
Jennie/The Lady Behind the Paper: Doyeon Mun, Friederike Wrobel
Director: Jochen Biganzoli
Conductor: Márton Terts
Designer: Heike Neugebauer
Video: Thomas Lippick
Technician: Daniel Schauder
Violin: Antonius Voigt
Viola: Liudmila Jowtschewa
Violoncello: Michelle Zhu, Stian García-Godos Wiig
Flute/Picc: Ai-Yin Chou
Clarinet/Bass Cl.: Moritz Thomas
Grace also gave a lecture at the Hochschule für Franz Liszt, Weimar, titled ‘Behind the Music; The Yellow Wallpaper’ in which she presented on the making of The Yellow Wallpaper and The Imagined Forest and was available for questions from the audience.
Grace-Evangeline Mason with students of the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar
