PEER GYNT. Director Edvard Miler

We may say that Ibsen's Peer Gynt belongs to the gallery of the most famous dramatic characters of all times. His story and intentions place him alongside Don Quixote, Faust, Hamlet, Don Juan … Peer Gynt, a play in verse, is a mixture of real events intertwined with autobiographical elements and elements of the fairy tale world full of symbols that open the possibilities for different interpretations. Young Peer lives alone with his mother. Al - though their days are formally poor, they are full of wild indulgent rides through imaginary landscapes, stories, fables, fairy tales, poems and hallucinations ... Peer is growing up into a troubled, demanding and enchanting dreamer. His person is a battlefield of »two souls«: the first, rooted in the fairy tale world, strives for the beautiful and the ethical, while the second tempts him to tackle the unknown, the risky, the secret, the dark. Although the play is based on Peer's search for himself and the reliance on self-sufficiency that should be demonstrated in the self-realisation and fulfilment of his wishes, the ending is serious and rather bitter. Peer's desire for any kind of success and his tireless conviction about his exceptionality repeatedly bring him to the centre of society, but thwart him every time. At the end of his life, Peer returns to his home town where faithful Solveig has waited all that time. And look, Solveig will not listen to Peer's confession. Tenderly she takes his head in her arms and sings about her love.

Peer Gynt is one of the most beautiful stories about a man as a daring seeker and about love as the binding force of everything. The staging, a result of joint efforts of Ljubljana City Theatre and the Slovenian Theatre of Trieste, is a large and demanding production undertaken with the desire to create something beautiful and precious together.