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Franz Kafka was a German-language novelist and writer from Prague. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the novella The Metamorphosis and novels The Trial and The Castle. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe absurd situations like those depicted in his writing.
The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best-known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. Heavily influenced by Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Kafka even went so far as to call Dostoevsky a blood relative. Like Kafka's two other novels, The Castle and Amerika, The Trial was never completed, although it does include a chapter which appears to bring the story to an intentionally abrupt ending.
Philip Glass is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped to evolve stylistically.
A trial is the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court.
Absurdist fiction is a genre of novels, plays, poems, films, or other media that focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value.
"In the Penal Colony" is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the narrator in this story seems detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events that one would normally expect to be registered with horror. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden as an influence. The story is set in an unnamed penal colony and describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin as he slowly dies over the course of twelve hours. As the plot unfolds, the reader learns more and more about the machine, including its origin and original justification.
Max Brod was a Bohemian-born Israeli author, composer, and journalist.
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a historic opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there.
Einstein on the Beach is an opera in four acts composed by Philip Glass and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson, who also collaborated with Glass on the work's libretto. The opera eschews traditional narrative in favor of a formalist approach based on structured spaces laid out by Wilson in a series of storyboards which are framed and connected by five "knee plays" or intermezzos. The music was written "in the spring, summer and fall of 1975." Glass recounts the collaborative process: "I put [Wilson’s notebook of sketches] on the piano and composed each section like a portrait of the drawing before me. The score was begun in the spring of 1975 and completed by the following November, and those drawings were before me all the time."
The Castle is the last novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist known only as "K." arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle supposedly owned by Graf Westwest.
Costas Andreou is a musician and composer based in Athens, Greece. He processes the sounds of fretless electric bass in real time, creating multi-level soundscapes. He has written and performed the music and done the sound design for theatre performances and other artistic productions. His music has been used in various documentaries, films and television productions. His music is available to preview and download on his website.
The Trial is a 1962 drama film written and directed by Orson Welles, based on the 1925 posthumously published novel of the same name by Franz Kafka. Welles stated immediately after completing the film: "The Trial is the best film I have ever made". The film begins with Welles narrating Kafka's parable "Before the Law" to pinscreen scenes created by the artists Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker.
The Trial is a 1993 film made by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) based on Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of Franz Kafka's 1925 novel The Trial.
"Before the Law" is a parable contained in the novel The Trial, by Franz Kafka. "Before the Law" was published twice in Kafka's lifetime, first in the 1915 New Year's edition of the independent Jewish weekly Selbstwehr, then in 1919 as part of the collection Ein Landarzt. The Trial, however, was not published until 1925, after Kafka's death.
In the Penal Colony is a chamber opera in one act and 16 scenes composed by Philip Glass to an English-language libretto by Rudy Wurlitzer. The opera is based on Franz Kafka's German-language short story In the Penal Colony. It was commissioned by ACT Theatre in Seattle, Washington, where it premiered on August 31, 2000. It has a running time of approximately 80 minutes and is scored for two singers and a string quintet.
Paul Richard Bentley is a British stage, film and television actor, perhaps best known for playing the High Septon in the television series Game of Thrones. He is also a writer.
Der Prozeß is a German-language opera in two parts, divided into nine scenes, with music by Gottfried von Einem and a libretto by Boris Blacher and Heinz von Cramer, based on the posthumously published 1925 novel by Franz Kafka. Composed over the period 1950 to 1952, this was von Einem's second opera. He dedicated it to the psychologist and theologian Oskar Pfister, who had been his therapist, and to his former teacher, Karl Christian Jensen.
Das Schloß is a 1992 German-language opera by Aribert Reimann. He wrote his own libretto based on Kafka's novel and its dramatization by Max Brod. It premiered on 2 September 1992 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, staged by Willy Decker and conducted by Michael Boder.
The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and struggles to adjust to his new condition. The novella has been recreated, referenced, or parodied in various popular culture media.
Orphée is a chamber opera in two acts and 18 scenes, for ensemble and soloists, composed in 1991 by Philip Glass, to a libretto by the composer, based on the scenario of the eponymous film (1950) by Jean Cocteau. Commissioned by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, this is the first part of a trilogy in honour of the French poet. The world premiere of the work took place on 14 May 1993 under the direction of Martin Goldray and the European premiere in London on 27 May 2005 in the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio Theatre.
References
- ↑ Michael Church (2014-10-13). "Philip Glass' The Trial, Linbury Theatre, review: Kafka's story has an astonishing prescience" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Hannah Nepil (2014-10-13). "The Trial, Linbury Studio Theatre, London – review". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Andrew Clements (2014-10-12). "The Trial review – captures the essence of Kafka's surreal fable". The Guardian. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Rolf-Dietmar Schmidt (2015-04-04). "Verloren in der unsichtbaren Macht". Volkstimme. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ "The Trial by Philip Glass Premieres in Scotland" (PDF) (Press release). Scottish Opera. 1 December 2016. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Sarah Bryan Miller (2017-06-05). "The Trial at OTSL gets a fine production, but the comedy is dark indeed". Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Robert Beale (2014-10-15). "Philip Glass opera brings Kafka's The Trial to the stage". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ "Franz Kafka's The Trial review: 'Tense, terse and brooding'". Daily Express. 2014-10-16. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Peter Aspden (2014-10-03). "Christopher Hampton: another dangerous liaison". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ Sarah Bryan Miller (2017-05-29). "Opera Theatre prepares to stage a 'neutron bomb' of an opera, The Trial". Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
- ↑ The original German term used by Kafka, Verschleppung, more accurately translates as 'protraction'. K.'s trial continues to proceed and is never 'postponed'. Kafka, Franz, The Trial (translated by Breon Mitchell). Schoken Books (New York City, USA), ISBN 0-8052-0999-9, 'Translator's Foreword', p. xxv (1998).
