Joyce and Bräunig: Theater plans for Capital of Culture

A dance voyage of discovery based on "Ulysses" by James Joyce, a theater festival and a summer concert series in the open air: Theater Chemnitz also wants to inspire international visitors in the Capital of Culture year 2025. The theater management provided information about its plans on Thursday. Together with guest companies, the ballet company is inviting visitors on an 18-stop tour through the city. "Odyssey in C" is the name of the project based on Joyce's novel of the century. The city is also set to become a large ballet stage for the "Tanz Moderne Tanz" festival. Meanwhile, the opera takes on the novel "Rummelplatz" by Werner Bräunig, which revolves around the early years of uranium mining in the region. The libretto is by the award-winning author Jenny Erpenbeck and the world premiere is planned for fall 2025.

With a view to the international audience, the five-division house is focusing on multilingualism in many areas, General Director Christoph Dittrich said on Thursday. For example, there will be surtitles in a number of plays and the repertoire will be bilingual. The theater is working on a bilingual Bob Dylan evening entitled "Rolling Thunder" as well as a trilingual play about Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem. There will also be an international theater festival entitled "Nonstop Europe! 2025".

Specifically for the Capital of Culture program, the theater is also working with other theatres in the region on a tetralogy entitled "Inside Outside Europe". The stage will represent the geographical area of Europe. The play will tell of clowns, conversations with locals and stories of migrants, it was said. Another production with the working title "Archaeology of Things" ties in with the 3000 garages project of the Capital of Culture and is dedicated to the stories of garage owners and their collected treasures.

Chemnitz shares the title of European Capital of Culture with Nova Gorica in Slovenia in 2025. The complete program for the Capital of Culture year is to be officially presented in October.