Moby Dick

In the organizer's words:

by Herman Melville with music by Anna Calvi - Schauspielhaus, Großes Haus - Schauspiel

The great American director Robert Wilson returns to Düsseldorf for "Moby Dick", where he last premiered "Dorian". As in Wilson's influential production of "The Sandman", British pop artist Anna Calvi will compose the music for the play. Rosa Enskat plays the legendary Captain Ahab. The Düsseldorf ensemble will be joined by Christopher Nell, who has often been at the center of Wilson's productions.

It is a simple story: Ishmael goes to sea and signs on to the whaler Pequod, which is commanded by Captain Ahab. He is obsessed with the hunt for the white sperm whale that once tore off half his leg. He and his crew search for the animal on all the seas, they find it and in the end almost all of them are torn to death by it.

It is a simple story - it is a novel of the century. For Herman Melville's legendary story of the white whale and its hunter is both a seafaring tale and a panorama of human experience across the horizon. Philosophy and adventure, science and art, myth and appearance join hands in this text and tell of man chasing his demons in order to fathom nothing less than the secret of his own existence in battle.