A rock star among the European avant-garde, Belgian theater director and visual artist Jan Fabre, renowned for simultaneously seducing and challenging three decades of audiences and critics, will present the American premiere of his most recent musical-theater work, “Tragedy of a Friendship,” at Peak Performances, November 1-3.
Performed by Fabre’s theater company, Troubleyn, the production presents a searing and unsparing look at the loving, idolatrous, mercurial, and ultimately incendiary relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Wagner. The composer and the philosopher each possess what the other secretly envies: Wagner desires Nietzsche’s brilliant philosophical mind, and Nietzsche covets Wagner’s musical genius. Together, the two great men embody the dichotomy between intellectual and creative brilliance, and exemplify the extreme times in which they were living.
Centering on the character of Wagner, “Tragedy of a Friendship” at times terrifies with its brutality, and at others glows with the sublimity of a Wagnerian opera. The work is conceived and directed by Jan Fabre, who also designed the set. Moritz Eggert and Wagner are composers for the piece, which features Hans Peter Janssens and Lies Vandeweghe in live performance as tenor and soprano, accompanied by a recorded score performed by the Flanders Opera Symphony Orchestra. The text is by Stefan Hertmans.
metamorphosis are indispensable ingredients in Fabre’s theater. Productions such as Je Suis Sang ,Tannhäuser, Angel of Death, Quando L’uomo Principale è una Donna, Orgy of Tolerance, Preparatio Mortis and Prometheus-Landscape II earned Fabre international acclaim.
In 2005, Fabre was named Artiste Associé of the prestigious Festival d’Avignon. He later created Histoire des Larmes for the Cour d’honneur, where he had previously performed Je Suis Sang in 2001, and again in 2005, earning him the distinct honor of being the only artist in the world to perform three times on the Cour d’honneur in Avignon. In 2007, Fabre created Requiem für Eine Metamorphose for the Felsenreitschule of Salzburg.
Over the years, Fabre has also built an equally notable oeuvre as a visual artist. Recent exhibitions include: L’ange de la Métamorphose (Louvre, Paris 2008), From the Cellar to the Attic — From the Feet to the Brain (Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2008; venice biennale, 2009), The Hour Blue (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, 2011), Hortus/ Corpus (Kröller-Müller Museum Otterlo, 2011), Pietas (Venice Biennale, 2011), Waxes & Bronzes (Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, 2012-2013). This fall Fabre prepares a solo exhibition at the Maxxi in Rome, and at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille. He is presently working on a 24-hour theater project, Mount Olympus, which will be out in 2015.