Court Room 600
by Kevin Barz
Planned Production
in German
Team
Concept and Director: Kevin Barz
Stage and Costume Design: Anika Wieners
Composition: Paul Brody
Dramaturgy: Katharina Fröhlich
Cast
Anouk Elias (Interpreter (French))
Jojo Rösler (Interpreter (British))
Hannes Berg (Interpreter (American))
Lea Geszti (Interpreter (Russian))
What does evil sound like? Does the voice of a man reveal how cruel he is? “SAAL 600” translates the Nuremberg Trials against the main war criminals of the Second World War into music. For this documentary music-theatre evening, composer Paul Brody has extracted the speech melody of defendants such as Hermann Göring or Albert Speer from original sound recordings and prepared it for a quartet of trumpet, accordion, clarinet, and cello.
Kevin Barz's production shows the trial of the crimes of the Third Reich from the perspective of four simultaneous interpreters - the Nuremberg Trials are considered the birth of simultaneous interpreting. By translating simultaneously in Russian, English, French and German, the attempt was made to achieve the greatest possible justice in court. In order to lend a voice to the accused, the interpreters in Nuremberg not only had to use their linguistic skills, but also to hide their personal biography.
During the trial, many of the international guests at the trials listened over headphones not to Hermann Göring speaking of his deeds, but to an interpreter describing his deeds for him and who carefully mastered his choice of words, intonation and speech melody. Like a multilingual choir, the actors mediate between the trial parties in the production, translating the music hovering over the evening back into the statements underlying it.
Kevin Barz's production shows the trial of the crimes of the Third Reich from the perspective of four simultaneous interpreters - the Nuremberg Trials are considered the birth of simultaneous interpreting. By translating simultaneously in Russian, English, French and German, the attempt was made to achieve the greatest possible justice in court. In order to lend a voice to the accused, the interpreters in Nuremberg not only had to use their linguistic skills, but also to hide their personal biography.
During the trial, many of the international guests at the trials listened over headphones not to Hermann Göring speaking of his deeds, but to an interpreter describing his deeds for him and who carefully mastered his choice of words, intonation and speech melody. Like a multilingual choir, the actors mediate between the trial parties in the production, translating the music hovering over the evening back into the statements underlying it.