Film adaptation

Abridged version 2021

Instrumentation

1 concert grand- or wall piano

1 classical or steel-string guitar

mixed choir, at least 4 voices (M/F/D)

six actors (M/F/D)

Duration

120 Minutes

Commission

The project was supported by a scholarship from the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg.

Premiere

18th December 2021

(Abridged version 2021)

Freundeskreis Asyl Karlsruhe e.V., Karlsruhe

Musical Cast

Choir - Shichao Cheng, Franziska Fait, Kim Gadewoltz

Piano - Zihao Lin

Conductor - Sean Robert Silva

Dramatic Cast

Carl August Niesner - Jonas Kempermann

Emma Niesner - Amy Pollitz

Daniel Niesner - Maksym Ilijan

Franziska Lichtenberg - Yolanda Rohde

Short Synopsis

"Die Verlorenen" is a music-theatre piece about the events of the 1848 revolution in Baden. A master printer and his family suffer from poor economic conditions and hunger, blaming the princes of the German Confederation for their plight. They place their hopes in the emerging democratic movement. The historical conflict is reflected in the family: the master printer clings to the idea of German unity and the National Assembly, while his son and, gradually, his wife and the son’s fiancée are drawn into the revolutionary democracy. The traditionally bourgeois views of the father increasingly clash with the emancipatory demands of the women, who find no voice in the male-dominated politics, and with the precarious position of the son, who faces a descent into the emerging working class due to technological developments. Thus, the revolution is explicitly not portrayed as a national movement but in the context of a pan-European self-liberation attempt and the rise of capitalism.

In the tradition of Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theatre, the events of the revolution are depicted with a contemporary perspective, for example, in relation to the still disadvantaged role of women in neoliberalism. The musical framework of the piece highlights the historical nature of the action while also drawing attention to still-relevant issues – such as the value of political freedoms in the context of economic and social oppression – and symbolically passes on the power to act to the audience at the end.

The realization of the drama was supported by a scholarship from the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg.

PDF of the Synopsis

Publication

Unpublished

Performance rights

Sean Robert Silva / Maksym Ilijan

kontakt@seansilva.de

(+49) 157 325 289 57

Lessingstraße 28

76135 Karlsruhe

Deutschland

© Copyright 2021 by Sean Robert Silva / Maksym Ilijan