Libretto: Thomas Körner after the same-named play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Place and time: Bremen, 1831

Characters: GEESCHE GOTTFRIED (Mezzo Soprano) MILTENBERGER, HER FIRST MAN (Baritone) TIMM, HER FARTHER (Bass) MOTHER (Alto) GOTTFRIED, HER SECOND MAN (heroic Tenor) ZIMMERMANN, A FRIEND ((dramatic Tenor) RUMPF, A FRIEND (lyric Tenor) JOHANN, HER BROTHER / BOHM, A COUSIN (heroic Baritone) LUISE MAUER, A FRIEND (Soprano) VATER MARKUS (Bass) ONE ALTO

Each singer and instrumentalist will be provided with different additional instruments.

The vividness and freshness of the characters, the cruelty that permeates it, the ridiculous and sometimes utterly grotesque – it presents a broad palette of resources that is truly rare. And I also had luck with the librettist Thomas Körner of Hamburg. He heightened the Fassbinder text, making it sharp like a knife. There is so much elemental power in this text, something wild and untamed. I was enthralled by the character of the poisoner, by the pattern: I kill everyone who disturbs me, which will help me obtain my freedom. But this freedom is an illusion. It comes from bondage and leads to bondage. She does not free herself, but entangles herself in her own net. Her struggle to achieve freedom provides incredible possibilities for my work with the sound. The sound genuinely attempts to free itself here. The fifteen instruments that form the entire sound apparatus are split into blocks, and after every change of lighting, there is an exchange of instruments so that the sound is really mobile and wanders freely throughout the hall. The instrumentalists are not permanently positioned in one place. They can be disposed at will in the hall. They constitute a part of the stage setting. A clarinetist can be like a chair, and a trombone player like a table. Their function is that of stage-set elements and not of musical accompaniment. They are like characters. There are many stage possibilities here for making music theater in which one does not distinguish between sound, action, theatrical elements and colors.

(Adriana Hölszky)


CD:
Produktion der Staatsoper Stuttgart, Ensemble avance, cond. András Hamary,
Wergo WER 5411 2


Bibliography:

Feuchtner, Bernd: 1988. Bremer Freiheit, in: ders., Die Oper des 20. Jahrhunderts in 100 Meisterwerken, Hofheim: Wolke 2020, S. 601-607
Hiekel, Jörn Peter: Chaotische Zustände auskomponieren. Adriana Hölszkys Musiktheaterstück Bremer Freiheit als Werk des Durchbruchs, in: Adriana Hölszky, hrsg. von Ulrich Tadday (Musik-Konzepte, Neue Folge Heft 160/161), München: edition text+kritik 2013, pp. 43-56.
Kostakeva, Maria: Metamorphose und Eruption. Annäherung an die Klangwelten Adriana Hölszkys, Hofheim: wolke 2013 (pp. 29-35).
Spassov, Bojidar: Der Tod als Wiederholungsspiel im Bremer Freiheit von Adriana Hölszky, in: Katastrophe, Sühne Erlösung: Der Tod im (Musik-)Theater, hrsg. von Jürgen Kühnel, Ulrich Müller und Oswald Panagl (= Wort und Musik. Salzburger akademische Beiträge 72), Anif/Salzburg: Mueller-Speiser 2010, pp. 492-497.