In 2012 Heiner Goebbels became Artistic Director of Ruhrtriennale for three years. In his final season, he now presents his stage work Surrogate Cities in a new production in Duisburg. Heiner Goebbels tells us more in this interview.           

Mr. Goebbels, where do you like to live best: in a large city, in the outskirts of a large city, or in the countryside?

Even though I love the landscape view, I am not suited for living in the countryside. For me, complete silence causes sleepless nights, and I would miss the inspiring confrontations that you have in a large city.

Internationally, Surrogate Cities (1994) is one of the most popular and successful stage works of contemporary music. How did you come up with this piece? 

It is not really a stage work, but rather an orchestra cycle that has been staged and choreographed on various occasions. Just using lighting, I have staged it as a scenic concert many times. However, this music does not really need any kind of illustration.

The cycle was written for a double anniversary: the 700th birthday of the city of Frankfurt and the 20th birthday of Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. This inspired me to regard even the structure of an orchestra as an urban metaphor. 

Your composition Walden (1998) is a thematic counterpart to  Surrogate Cities which also can be staged as a full-length work.  What is “urban” about the music of Surrogate Cities?

The rhythm of the large city, the rapid changes, architectural methods in the composition, historic layers that come to the surface – but also literary inspirations by Franz Kafka, Heiner Müller, Paul Auster, and Hugo Hamilton.  

You are using various kinds of texts in Surrogate Cities. What is the relationship between text and music?

Heiner Müller‘s text about the civil war between Rome and Alba is used without interruption in three songs for mezzo-soprano. Other texts like Kafka’s drastic fable about the Tower of Babel can’t be heard; it is used as a recurring motif in D&C and in the various virtuoso voices of David Moss improvised in the orchestra piece Die Faust im Wappen.

What is the difference between the staging in Duisburg and previous performances?

Here at the Kraftzentrale in Duisburg the French choreographer Mathilde Monnier creates a whole new choreography. She is working with people of all ages from the Ruhr Area: with school children, with teenagers from two Hip Hop dance groups, with adult members of a martial arts group, and with senior citizens that specialize in ballroom dancing. 

Together with the Bochumer Symphoniker and conductor Steven Sloane there will be more than 250 people from the Ruhr Area community on the stage. In 2008 Mathilde Monnier had a similar approach when she worked on Surrogate Cities together with Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle. But this version here in Duisburg is tailored to the region and the powerful space within the “Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord”: a 160 meter long monster consisting of steel and concrete. 

You have found your own way to combine literature, music, and theatre. In your opinion do we still need conventional opera houses?

Of course: as a museum for a repertoire that is more than 300 years old. However, they are not laboratories for trying out new concepts, if you want to do more than just changing the sound.

What is your personal conclusion after three years at the Ruhrtriennale?

For me, the Ruhrtriennale proved in the most wonderful way that it is possible to do a festival that totally rejects the popular repertoire and that focusses on experiencing new art instead. The audience appreciated this approach as well. Without striving for it, last year’s Ruhrtriennale had the highest occupancy since the festival was founded. 

The Ruhrtriennale was also a great opportunity to collaborate with visual artists and to create new works with them that could hardly have been done somewhere else: Ryoji Ikeda’s 100-meter-long sound and video installation in Duisburg, Michal Rovner’s Current in Essen, or Gregor Schneider in Bochum.
Additionally I had the chance to dig up three music theatre works that have not been or that have only rarely been performed in Europe; works that are hardly compatible with conventional opera houses: John Cage’s Europeras 1 & 2, Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury, and Louis Andriessen’s De Materie.

In a few weeks Johan Simons will succeed you as the Artistic Director of Ruhrtriennale. What plans do you have for the future?

I think I need to compose again, even though it will be tough…


Staged performances of the orchestra cycle Surrogate Cities:
1994 Paris
1996 Munich
1999 Bochum
2000 Charleston (USA), Nuremberg
2001 Dessau
2002 Freiburg
2003 Berlin, Lucerne, Brisbane (Australia)
2005 Venedig, Aarhus  
2006 Stockholm, Groningen
2008 Berlin, Den Haag, Umea
2012 London
2013 Stavanger
2014 Duisburg

Heiner Goebbels: work list

Photo: Wonge Bergmann for Ruhrtriennale