Hanover fetes contemporary art in Baroque setting

Hanover's Kunstfestspiele open this week, bringing new music and contemporary art to the city's Herrenhausen Baroque garden. Event director Elisabeth Schweeger has set out to recreate the sense of fun and games and intellectual excitement that characterized the Baroque world. In the famous Hedge Theater, Swiss performance artist Roman Signer will present a work involving a helicopter, several buckets of water and a kayak.

One of the highlights of the month-long festival is Monteverdi's opera "Orfeo" in Alexander Charim's new production about a contemporary couple in a world of drugs, suicide and passion. Swedish conductor Olaf Boman has added new music to the Baroque score to create an exciting sound mix.

There is no lack of humor at the festival. In his installation "Caprificus," Thomas George evokes the figs planted at Herrenhausen. Visitors can enter a huge replica of a fig in a symbolic act of fertilization. More than 30 events will be presented as part of the 2010 festival.

Author: Mariana Schroeder

Editor: Kate Bowen