The story of the soldier

An extraordinary evening between narrative art and music theater: Austrian chamber actor Michael Dangl and six outstanding musicians from the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, led by concertmaster Naoka Aoki, perform Igor Stravinsky's "The Soldier's Tale" in Gmunden.

Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" forms the prelude. Dangl recites the story with fine linguistic artistry and lends it a new dimension, while the musicians play around it musically in changing formations and make it shine. This opens up a poetic sound space that leads directly into Stravinsky's work as an introduction.

"The Soldier's Tale", conceived by Igor Stravinsky and the poet Charles Ferdinand Ramuz as a traveling play during the First World War, tells of a soldier's deal with the devil - a parable about seduction, greed and loss that has lost none of its power and topicality to this day. In this special interpretation, Michael Dangl takes on all the speaking roles and combines dramatic intensity with subtle humor and narrative lightness.

The ensemble of the Munich Philharmonic - with violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, trumpet and percussion - unfolds Stravinsky's brilliant sound cosmos between march, tango, waltz and jazz. Precision, virtuosity and joy of playing make the performance a haunting synthesis of the arts that unites drama and music with rare intensity.

An evening of great radiance that fuses Andersen, Stravinsky and Ramuz into an extraordinary experience in Gmunden.