THE ORGIES MYSTERIES THEATER, 160th action “the 6-day-play”, 2nd version

30 – 31 July 2022, performance of the 1st and 2nd day

Atelier Hermann Nitsch, Schloss Prinzendorf, AT

“the 6-day-play of the o. m. theater is a work in progress. everything i’ve ever done, my action painting, all my performance actions, my music, they were all precursors for a never-to-be-completed work. in 1998 i succeeded in staging a possible version of the 6-day play in the orgies mysteries theater at prinzendorf. in 2022 i wish to stage another version of the 6-day play. the music, extended into organ sounds and escalating into music of the spheres, is becoming all the more essential.”

24 years after the first staging of the 6-day play (1998), this summer the total work of art is to once again be condensed into a concentrated interplay of all its components. It was the cherished wish of Hermann Nitsch (*29 August 1938 in Vienna; Ϯ 18 April 2022 in Mistelbach) that his 6-day-play will be performed this year in the new version.

The performances of the 1st and 2nd days are to take place on 30 and 31 July 2022 in Schloss Prinzendorf. Rita Nitsch is fulfilling Nitsch’s wish posthumously supported by a core team of Andrea Cusumano as musical director and Leo Kopp, Frank Gassner and Josef Smutný as directorial team. The other four days of the action are to be performed in the following years.

The festival for all the senses will be celebrated in and around Schloss Prinzendorf in Lower Austria, an hour’s drive from Vienna, where the artist lived and worked to the last.

“schloss prinzendorf became my theater. this castle complex was the ideal prerequisite for the orgies mysteries theater.”

Hermann Nitsch’s idea for an action performance lasting six days and six nights goes back to the year 1957. At the time working with the medium of literature, the artist, influenced by the attempts of Richard Wagner and Alexander Scriabin to realise a total work of art, imagined his own action theater, oriented on synaesthetic experience engrossing all five senses: the Orgies Mysteries Theater.

The length is an analogy to the story of creation and is conceived as an extension of all monumental works of art. Thus, all the performed actions of the Orgies Mysteries Theater ever since the early 1960s need to be understood as part realisations of the 6-day-play.

The six days and nights of the Orgies Mysteries Theater follow a 776-page score composed by Nitsch. A total of sixty actors, along with one hundred musicians will realize the artist’s vision this year. Besides the visual form, the music plays a crucial role. “the music, extended into organ sounds and escalating into music of the spheres, is becoming all the more essential.”

The play’s course follows a symphonic concept with the attempt to make all senses experienceable in theater – taste and smell laboratories as well as smoking samples based on precise instructions from the score will complement the action. The arena for the performance is the castle grounds in Prinzendorf, encompassing all its rooms and spaces of its surroundings. The play participants can leave the setting at any time, go for walks in the surrounding fields or visit the wine cellars in the village lanes – and then return to the action happenings. The garden and courtyard, the mews, the granary, the gentle rolling hills with its vineyards, cornfields, and fruit trees, as well as the cellar lanes of the village, will be integrated into the performance and form the atmospheric backdrop.

The play participants are called on to sense and perceive what happens intensively as possible, to forget the variegated outside world and descend into the abysses of our being, but then ascend into radiant light. The festival ends on August 1st at sunrise – all the actors and the participants, embrace and kiss (as scored by Nitsch) and leave the location “intoxicated with being”.

The booklet of the 2. Version of the 6-day-play can be downloaded here

Tickets & Registration

Prices for participation as viewer including food and beverages.

€ 400,- | participation fee for 2 days
€ 300,- | participation fee for 1 day (according to availability 30 July 2022 or 31 July 2022)
€ 300,- | students up to the age of 28, 2 days

50% reduction for members of the verein zur förderung des o.m. theaters with at least 3 years of active membership (i.e. continuous payments of the yearly fee, excluding honorary members).

Presale only, until 25 July 2022. No ticket sales at the venue!

more about ticketing and the registration procedure: www.nitsch-foundation.com/the-6-day-play-2022-info

Press and commercial images

Hermann Nitsch is a member of the copyright collecting agency Bildrecht GmbH.

All film and photo shootings must be arranged and approved in advance. Because the shootings are supervised by the Press Department of the Foundation, we kindly request appropriate notice for commercial shootings and press work not related to any urgent reporting needs.

Contact

e: office@nitsch-foundation.com

t: +43 1 513 55 30