Evolution

"Does the beast come back?"

Three generations of one family. The past, present and future. Different ages, different paths in life, and yet all of them both start from and lead to the same place. Does fate rule over us, or do we rule our fates? Do we live our lives deprived of individual destinies, or do they in fact exist, and we are the prisoners of their logic? What is the role of repetition in our daily lives? Do we repeat our parents’ mistakes? Do the traumas in our parents' lives influence our own lives? And for how many generations? Do people develop? Do they evolve? How long does memory last? At what point does history start to repeat itself?

Based on György Ligeti's Requiem the world premier of Kornél Mundruczó and Proton Theatre lies on the boundary of concert and theatre and analyses the theme of repetition.

"This performance is visually stunning, technically sophisticated and, in terms of its content, thought-provoking." (Bayerische Rundfunk - Germany)

"The co-production by the Ruhrtriennale and the Proton Theater of Budapest is the highlight of this year's festival, if not also the highlight of all the festivals organized in the former industrial space since 2003. The production by Kornél Mundruczó is a brilliantly visionary piece through which the Requiem has found its real form." (revierpassagen.de - Germany)

"For days, German theatre directors have been making the pilgrimage to Bochum in order to witness an extraordinary performance in the immense Jahrhunderthalle, where Hungarian film and theatre director Kornél Mundruczó has staged his countryman György Ligeti’s 1965 work Requiem. This world premiere of the production is the absolute highlight of the festival, and the critics are outdoing each other to sing its praises." (Badische Zeitung - Germany)

"It is the first large-scale production of this year's Ruhrtriennale in which image and text, music and acting, tension, aspiration, clarity and abstraction all merge into a symbiosis where everything is in its proper place, one that is touching and heavy-hearted and emits such a strong sense of theatrical sensuality that it gets under your skin. (...) Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó has given the title Evolution to this grandiose creation of his produced in collaboration with the conductor Steven Sloane." (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung - Germany)

"Evolution, the production by Kornél Mundruczó and Steven Sloane, succeeds in creating a profoundly disturbing and fantastic climax to the Ruhrtriennale." (Recklinghäuser Zeitung - Germany)

"The choir and orchestra – like the actors – perform at the highest artistic level with maximum energy. Ligeti's music is inexorable, dissonant, and disturbing." (Feuilleton Frankfurt - Germany)

"In Evolution, both the poetic and the profane are present at the same time." (theatermail nrw - Germany)

"Kornél Mundruczó tells three stylistically very different stories with three different main characters, whose names serve as the titles of their respective episodes: Éva, Léna and Jonas. A grandmother, a mother and a son, that is, the past, present and future. (...) An evening that is riveting both musically and visually, not to mention touching and terrifying. The best and most important production of the current triennial season." (Online Musik Magazin - Germany)

"Manifesting itself in this kingdom of death painted by Mundruczó and Ligeti with the darkest of colors is the fountain of life itself." (nachtkritik.de - Germany)

"The space where the first scene takes place is immediately recognizable as a gas chamber with showers and a peephole in the steel door. Three muscular cleaners – actors from Mundruczó's Proton Theater in Hungary – discover hair in the drain grates and showerheads. Pulling out a huge clump of it, they find themselves tangled up in this giant wad, an episode that turns into a battle between men and hair. The theme from the Dies Irae is heard, and water erupts from the floor like a fountain. (...) In the first part, Ligeti's piece is played in its entirety. The anxiety that this music induces can scarcely be matched, and one suddenly gets the unsettling feeling that Ligeti actually composed his music specifically for Mundruczó's visual world." (Süddeutsche Zeitung - Germany)

"Three men are cleaning a gas chamber. This shocking sight makes one shudder, even subconsciously, and prompts the question of how we can co-exist with our memories in a society in which, not so long ago, incomprehensible crimes were being committed against our fellow humans." (rp-online.de - Germany)

"The set is a highly realistic residential kitchen, visible to the audience only through a window, as the events unfolding inside are revealed in real time on two projection screens. At one point, Léna opens the window to smoke a cigarette. Staring endlessly into the eyes of the audience, she seems small and alone between two massive images, magnified to superhuman proportions, of her mother. The Requiem is heard once again, this time only in fragments. First from the radio, and then live. The music adds depth to the events on stage, filling the gaps and reinforcing the already grandiose acting of Lili Monori (Éva) and Annamária Láng (Léna) of Budapest’s co-producing Proton Theater. The fact that the dialogue is conducted in Hungarian presents no obstacles. The characters’ viewpoints are clear, and the acting extremely intense." (die-deutsche-buehne.de - Germany)

"Unfolding between the wonderful actresses Lili Monori and Annamária Láng is a passionate debate about the truth of their family history, the work of writer Kata Wéber. "I don’t want to be a survivor. I want to be a living being.", says the daughter to her world-weary mother. We can never be free of our traumas: they live with us forever." (Badische Zeitung - Germany)

"The final image foreshadows what kind of future is waiting for Jonas between the virtual world of WhatsApp and everyday reality. Like Jonas and his virtual friends, people disappear from the stage like zombies in the brilliantly conceived lighting, mostly created by thick fog, designed by Felice Ross." (erpery.wordpress.com - Germany)

"All that is left in the end is the silence and a blue ball with clouds passing by on it. And then its light too is extinguished, and only the emotional turmoil remains." (trailer-ruhr.de - Germany)

"The trascendental is disturbing. (...) On stage there was peace, while a kind of horror filled the street." (Tímea Papp - revizoronline.com)

"Experiencing the gigantically articulated micropolyphonic part written for a massive choir from close up with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra and the Latvian State Choir and the two outstanding choral soloists under the baton of Steven Sloane was a true sensation of the evening!" (Klassikfavori - Germany)

"The Latvian State Choir and the Bochum Symphony Orchestra command the frightening depth of the basses just as they do the icy heights of the sopranos. In sound images that return again and again, the musicians and singers paint the end of the world as if were a grotesque painting by Pieter Brueghel or Hieronymus Bosch. Soloists Yeree Suh (soprano) and Virpi Räisänen (mezzo-soprano) catapult themselves into sheer stratospheric registers." (theater:pur - Germany)