The festival, which takes place in three-year cycles, opened at the weekend with a performance of Bernd Alois Zimmermann?s opera ?The Soldiers? in Bochum.
Other big names on the festival?s programme are Günther Grass, one of Germany?s greatest post-war writers, whose recent admission that he was a member of Hitler?s dreaded SS shocked many of his readers, and Vanessa Redgrave, the British actress and peace activist, who will read from the interrogation records of Camp X-Ray, the United States? prison camp for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo in Cuba.
Some 30 productions will share the theme of the triennale?s second season: ?Baroque man? Among them are Peter Zadek?s ?Hamlet?, Martin Kreidt and Ute Rawald?s ?Heinrich and Margarete: A ?Faust? for children after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?, and Péter Esterházy?s ?Rubens and the Non-Euclidean Women?. Works by the Spanish playwright Calderón and the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi will also feature on the programme.
?The Soldiers?, the festival?s opener, boasts a cast of 153. Just as ambitious, but in a different way, is Klaus Umbach?s ?Wahnfried- A German Hangout? in which the American baritone Alan Titus will sing all parts of Wagner?s Ring cycle.
