- Details
- Category: ANIMALS UNITED
a staged concert based on the story by Erich Kästner
Premiere June 11, 2024, Isarphilharmonie Munich (DE)
After the failed 86th International Human Conference, the lion Aloïs, the elephant Oskar and the giraffe Leopold decide to take matters into their own hands, because a solution must urgently be found to problems such as environmental destruction, climate, war, hunger and so on. After all, it’s about the future of the children! To this end, they invite all animals and human children from all over the world to their own conference in the Animal Tower Flat...
Animals United (Die Konferenz der Tiere) is Erich Kästner's first post-war novel and his ninth children's book. Even 70 years after the children's book was published in 1949, the story is more relevant than ever. In the stage direction and libretto by Annechien Koerselman, three actors play the roles of both animals and humans. The last ones are clearly less gifted in the field of world peace. The Munich Philharmonic is led by the young French conductor Chloe Dufresne.
Photo © Tobias Hase
Credits Cast & Crew
- Details
- Category: ANIMALS UNITED
Prepublicity
Gaststeig Magazine, Maria Zimmerer, June 2024
We humans can do so much, but have learned so little from the past! This thought has been on the mind of Dutch director Annechien Koerselman ever since she was asked by the Munich Philharmonic to create a staged children's concert based on Erich Kästner's "The Conference of the Animals (Animals United)".
The author formulated clear words against violence and ignorant adults who have no solutions for finding peace and a better future. Fortunately, imagination knows no bounds and so in Kästner's work animals from all continents unite and arrange a conference. I have never forgotten what I was like as a child, that helps!, says Koerselman, who has always fed her imagination well.
Suitable music must be easily audible and recognizable for children's ears, and must also fit in equally with the dialogues to form a complete work.
But Kästner's story can also inspire adults to ask themselves a fundamental question: "What do we really need in life? In our society, too much revolves around material things and growth, it's driving me crazy!" [The stage director] herself never had the feeling that she posessed too little - perhaps thanks to a life full of books and music.
