Jan Müller-Wieland (*1966)
König der Nacht
King of the Night

Epiphany for Speaker, Voices and Orchestra

after a text collage by the composer,
based on texts from the Book of Job,
by Pia Tafdrup, Nelly Sachs, Georg Büchner,
and Jakob Böhme, as well as biblical quotations

Premiered under the auspices of the Feldkirch Festival 2003

Speaker Klaus Maria Brandauer
Direction Thomas Hengelbrock

Soprano Sibylle Schaible, Heike Heilmann
Alto Maida Karisik

Balthasar Neumann Ensemble

In 2003 the Feldkirch Festival stood under the motto “Gottesspuren” (Traces of God). As artistic director of the Festival, Thomas Hengelbrock commissioned a full-length composition from the prizewinning German composer Jan Müller-Wieland.

As the textual basis, the composer employed excerpts from the Book of Job, additional biblical excerpts, as well as texts by Pia Tafdrup, Georg Büchner, and Jakob Böhme, and poetry by Nelly Sachs, the latter having been written before the backdrop of the existential threat posed by the Third Reich.

With the premiere of the melodrama King of the Night, a scenic-inspired “imaginary musical theater,” the successful collaboration between Klaus Maria Brandauer and Thomas Hengelbrock entered its third Feldkirch year. Brandauer played the roles of Satan, Yahwe, and Job in the gigantic part of a great sufferer, great creator, and great negator.

“It is a very effectively composed piece. The only reproach might be that no further performances are planned. A work like this would certainly meet with great interest.”
Die Welt

“Jan Müller-Wieland created a full-length work for a large formation that has tremendous power, but also poetry, delicacy, and, not least, wit. The instruments grunt and snort, Brandauer along with them, the sound grows, and finally an animal sent by God stands mightily before us.”
Neue Vorarlberger Zeitung