Hong Kong Sinfonietta Brings Shostakovich to Life with Asian Première of William Kentridge’s “Oh, To Believe In Another World”

Hong Kong Sinfonietta is bringing for the first time in Asia renowned South African multidisciplinary artist William Kentridge’s Oh, To Believe In Another World. Two live performances conducted by Music Director Christoph Poppen will be held on 18 and 19 November at Hong Kong City Hall, as the closing concerts of the New Vision Arts Festival 2023.

Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa, William Kentridge is a multidisciplinary artist, internationally acclaimed for his prints, drawings, tapestries, sculptures, animated films, theatre and opera stage designs. Combining creative methods and collaborative practices, Kentridge presents artworks reflecting on politics, science, literature and history, featuring ambiguity, contradiction and uncertainty.

William Kentridge by Norbert Miguletz

Since the 1990’s, his works have been seen in museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Whitechapel Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen or the Kunstmuseum in Basel. William Kentridge has also created a large number of opera stagings, including for Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” and Dmitri Shostakovich’s first opera, “The Nose”.

In 2016, Kentridge founded the Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg, a space for responsive thinking and making through experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts practices.

“Oh, To Believe in Another World” drawings

Commissioned in 2022 by the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester in Switzerland to accompany Shostakovich’s monumental Symphony No 10 (1953), his thought-provoking film Oh, To Believe In Another World illustrates the story of Soviet-Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and his complex relationship with the Soviet Union from the 1920s to 1960s, through cardboard and historical figures brought to life as puppets.

In his film, Kentridge invites the audience to contemplate Shostakovich’s tensed trajectory from the early days of the Soviet Union to the writing of the Symphony, often perceived as an expression of the composer’s thoughts. The Symphony was not published until after Stalin’s death and is now considered as one of the greatest works of the composer.

“Oh, To Believe in Another World” making

Set inside an abandoned Soviet museum made of cardboard, the film uses a miniature camera to bring the audience through different halls of the museum to discover the main characters of the story, like Shostakovich and his student Elmira Nazirova, prominent poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and his socialite lover Lilya Brik, as well as Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. These characters appear as puppets, but are also performed by actors inside of puppets.

“Oh to Believe in Another World”

With Oh, To Believe In Another World, Kentridge succeeded in producing a visual experience that does not turn the symphony into film music which could have overwhelmed the music itself.

It was widely acclaimed at its première by the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester in Switzerland in June 2022, and travelled later that year to Pompeii, Italy, and Johannesburg, South Africa.

“Oh, To Believe in Another World” Performance with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, 2022

The film was also shown during a special exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York between September and October 2023, alongside bronze sculptures, drawings, collaged lithographs, and mixed-media puppets.

For its Asian première, Kentridge’s film will be accompanied by a live performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10 with Hong Kong Sinfonietta orchestra conducted by Music Director Christoph Poppen.

Poppen was really keen on bringing Oh, To Believe In Another World to the Hong Kong audience. “Dimitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10 is one of his greatest and most important works. William Kentridge’s work is so fascinating and so strong that I simply thought our Hong Kong audience may not miss this. In a quite indescribable way, he is dealing with a very dark chapter of Russian history, from which also Shostakovich suffered tremendously. It will be a very strong impression for everyone who is able to join the concerts”, he explained.

Christoph Poppen

More details on the two performances can be found below:

Oh, To Believe in Another World. Tickets here: https://www.urbtix.hk/event-detail/10604/

The trailer of the film can be seen on the link here: https://youtu.be/uHMs_G_Q96o