Composition Commission to Reinhard Febel

OÖ Theater und Orchester, Linz, Austria

In the summer of 1860, a strange boy is born in Baltimore: Benjamin Button sees the light of day not as a baby, but as a bearded old man. His fate is predetermined: He goes through life backwards, getting younger by the day. When he finally meets Hildegarde, almost thirty years his junior, at the age of fifty, everything is at stake for him since he has never been loved due to the strange course of his life.

F. S. Fitzgerald's short story is a kind of folly, a whimsical and original yet only sketchily developed inspiration. Composer Reinhard Febel, however, takes the story for his opera quite seriously while not renouncing the grotesque and the comedic nature of the situations. The literary model makes it possible to pose existential questions about the meaning of aging, the coordinates of human existence and the reality and relativity of time. The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation is supporting the composition commission issued to Reinhard Febel.

May 20, 2023
Landestheater Linz, Grand Hall

Further Information:
landestheater-linz.at