The Burgtheater’s production of “Harmonia Caelestis” based on Péter Esterházy’s novel is focused in the myth about the father, or to be more precise on the western concept of the father figure. The author runs this culturally significant legend through the filters of time, historical events and old family novels as though with the purpose of testing its durability. David Marton with his concept of music as an independent method of exploring reality has gained broad international acclaim for his associative musical theatre. Marton’s production basically embraces the first volume of the monumental novel “Harmonia Caelestis” as being closer to the director’s fragmentary style. Besides, together with the singers, actors and musicians he undertakes to create a polyphonic fusion of Haydn and Bartók, Maria Teresia and Lady Di, the baroque and art nouveau styles.
To be sure David Marton used my novel merely as a point of departure and henceforth was thinking only in terms of the stage of Burgtheater. For an artist this would be only natural. What came out of it seems truly grandiose to me
From Peter Esterhazy’s interview for The Standard
