Rein Gold

Originally written as a libretto for the Berlin State Opera, Elfriede Jelinek's rein GOLD reconstructs the events of Wagner's epic Ring cycle and extends them into the present day. Brünnhilde diagnoses Wotan, father of the gods, to be a victim of capitalism because he, too, has fallen into the trap of wanting to own a castle he cannot afford. In a series of monologues, Brünnhilde and Wotan chart the evolution of capitalism from the Nibelungen Saga to the 2008 financial crisis. Written with her trademark 'extraordinary linguistic zeal' (Swedish Academy), rein GOLD is a playful and ferocious critique of universal greed by the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate.

Auteur

Elfriede Jelinek, who was born in 1946 and grew up in Vienna, now lives in Vienna and Munich. She has received numerous awards for her literary works, which include not only novels but also plays, poetry, essays, translations, radio plays, screenplays and opera librettos. Her awards include the Georg Buchner Prize and the Franz Kafka Prize for Literature. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her 'musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's cliches and their subjugating power'.

Texte du rabat

2004 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek's Rein Gold reconstructs the events of Wagner's epic Ring cycle and extends them into the present day. Originally written as a libretto for the Berlin State Opera, Rein Gold is a 'buhnenessay', an essay for the stage, structured in the form of a dialogue between Wotan, father of the gods, and his favourite daughter, Brunnhilde, in the third act of The Valkyrie. The book opens with Brunnhilde diagnosing her father Wotan to be a victim of capitalism because he, too, has fallen into the trap of wanting to own a castle he cannot afford. In stream of consciousness monologues, Brunnhilde and Wotan touch on a number of events from the days of the Nibelungen Saga to the 2008 financial crisis caused by the US subprime mortgage crisis and the role of banks therein, and through Marx's ideas as developed in Das Kapital, written almost contemporaneously with Wagner's Ring cycle. While rooted in Wagner's libretto, this sophisticated mesh of interwoven ideas also covers recent and current events, such as the way world leaders act in times of financial crisis, or the murders committed by the German neo-Nazi NSU group. Jelinek offers fascinatingly rich context for current political debates, as well as some intriguing new ideas, while never straying far from her leitmotif, the birth of capitalism.