The Golem at Nationaltheater Mannheim

One Jewish legend, a rabbi in the 17th century created an artificial man made of clay. The Golem, initially intended as a servant suddenly got a life of its own. In the section of 33 years, he emerged since the Prague ghetto again. Athanasius Pernaths life breaks out of joint: It is drawn in real intrigue, experiencing hallucinations and fall into spiritualistic tangles. Here he encounters along with the cracked Trödler Aaron Wassertrum who is filthy rich in truth and dominated the ghetto. Charousek, the illegitimate son of the outcast and laggard, Pernath talks about his plans for vengeance against the father, whom he mercilessly persecuted to the point of death. In this atmosphere of hatred and deceit Pernath finds relief in the presence of Rabbi Shemaiah Hillel and his daughter Miriam. For Hillel, it is not unusual that night Pernath encountered the Golem. From the map of an ancient Tarot game this enforces shape and appear his opposite than double.

Inspired by the fantastic novel by Gustav Meyrink Peter Missotten created as a template no written libretto, but an experimental film. It serves as a basis for the new composition, so that the shape of the resulting opera is no longer dominated by literary parameters, but by optical mechanisms. This results in new, unfamiliar in traditional forms of music theater. Bernhard Lang uses them to allow to work with different instrumental and vocal effects and incorporate suggestions from different genres in the work.