„Omnia tempus habent“ based on Carl Orff

This project is dedicated to interdisciplinary resonance. Under the title “Omnia tempus habent,” we turn our attention to Carl Orff’s spoken-word pieces—an “insider’s tip” that remains known primarily among experts to this day, representing a little-studied genre that straddles the line between music and theater.

 

A New Approach to Interdisciplinarity

For this high-caliber production, 12 acting students from the Theaterakademie Hamburg, under the direction of Prof. Marc Aisenbrey, will join forces with 5 students from the Hamburg University of Music and Theater (percussion class led by Prof. Cornelia Monske). In a spectacular production staged at various locations, Orff’s spoken-word pieces will be complemented by striking percussion works and pantomime performed by the acting students.

 

Innovative Approach: “Orff meets Audience”

The project creates an entirely new kind of experience by exploring two levels of resonance:

Aesthetic resonance:
The direct interaction and interdisciplinarity between “resonance/voice” (speech, breath, articulation) and “resonance/music” (percussion, rhythm).

Performative Resonance:
A radical breaking down of the invisible distance between the stage and the audience area. On the performative level, a direct interaction emerges between the performing artists on stage and the audience. The auditorium is integrated into the sonic and theatrical action; the audience becomes part of the resonance.

 

Cultural and Political Significance

Both flagship projects bring the festival’s theme, “Resonance,” to life in multifaceted ways. While the orchestra project builds a vital bridge that fosters international understanding and draws on the festival’s core strength of community-building, the Orff project pioneers performance art at the intersection of musical heritage, rhythm, and drama. To further raise the profile of the Bayreuth Festival of Young Artists in its transformative year of 2026—with its strong, innovative, and internationally renowned profile—we are deliberately foregoing many smaller individual projects this year to direct full public attention toward the major innovative projects.

 

Accompanying Program:

Symposium with Dr. Thomas Rösch, Director of the Orff Center in Munich, on “Richard Wagner and Carl Orff—A Highly Emotional Relationship”