Dichter zu Gast – Claudio Magris
Donau – Biographie eines Flusses

In German

In collaboration with Graf & Frey and the Salzburg Global Seminar

CAST

Claudio Magris, Hubert von Goisern

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

It is a literary and musical journey to new shores that connects the experiences of Claudio Magris and Hubert von Goisern. For the Danube has many names during its 2,850 kilometer journey until it flows into the Black Sea: Donau, Dunaj, Duna, Dunar, Dunai. Anyone wishing to do literary justice to the river must invent a new genre comprising the history and the tales, the empires and lands, the people and their languages. Claudio Magris manages this successfully, and his work Danube has become a standard in over 30 countries. An equally daring milestone has been set by the Austrian songwriter and world musician Hubert von Goisern: in a freight ship converted to a theatre, including a push boat with living quarters on board, a band and a crew, he sailed downstream to the Black Sea, blending his own music with that of local artists in countless concerts on board.

Claudio Magris, born in the Italian city of Trieste, is one of Italy’s most important experts on German literature and writers on current cultural matters and one of the best-known literati and essayists in Europe. Up to the time of his retirement as Professor for German Language and Literature at the University of Trieste he supervised translations of many German writing authors, including Joseph Roth, Arthur Schnitzler and Georg Büchner. As an essayist and columnist, he is a frequent contributor to the Corriere della Sera, commenting on domestic and foreign affairs. From 1994 to 1996 he was a member of the Roman Senate, representing the region of Trieste as an independent member of a leftist association. In 2002, along with Umberto Eco and other personalities from the fields of art and culture, he founded the association “Libertà e Giustizia” (Freedom and Justice), in order to take a critical stance towards the politics of Silvio Berlusconi.
He first came to international attention with the publication of his dissertation in 1963 on The Hapsburg Myth in Modern Austrian Literature. His essay Trieste, a European Literary Capital and his book Danube: a sentimental journey from the source to the Black Sea attracted a larger reading public.