SCHUBERT. A ROMANTIC COMPOSITION ON TWELVE ACTORS AND A STRING QUARTET. Director Magda Szpecht

Magda Szpecht’s play doesn’t tell the life story of the romantic composer Franz Schubert, but fragments and excerpts from his journal are projected onstage, revealing the existential pain and suffering of the artist, who died at the young age of 31. The audience listens to his most famous and acclaimed piece, Death and the Maiden, with a modern commentary composed by Wojtek Blecharz.

“Six students from the Senior University participate in the show, each of them with an alter ego and a “performative shadow”, played by a professional actor, hence the titular twelve performers. This formally simple strategy suggests additional subtexts and meanings, juxtaposing youth and senility, turning into a musical fable on the ruthless passing of time. Meanwhile a string quartet of Lower Silesia philharmonic musicians plays a slightly different part here than usual. Szpecht juxtaposes professionalism with the amateur choreography of a group of elderly people, further breaking the conventions of a traditional biographical piece. She tells a story about the power of music, stronger than any generation gap, through Schubert and his work.” (from the theatre’s archive of reviews)