Detlef Hartung – Georg Trenz

Three different installations were created for the 1st Mozart Week in Mannheim: on the outer fa�ade of the National Opera House (bona nox), in the opera house foyer (TAKTAKT) and on the façade of the Mannheim castle (NACHTMUSIK).

“A delight in combining things also shows in word play. Here too — however absurd the results may be — fixed rules apply. Seen in terms of what is said, the result is gibberish, but the method leading to it is though through precisely ...
Mozart encoded his name by spelling it backwards — he called himself Trazom, and his wife Znatsnoc. Such word play, even though it is using different material and intended as a joke — shows a similar creative approach to that of composition. Mozart‘s way of thinking stamps itself on all expressive media.”
F. Hennenberg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, rororo monograph 1992
 

Foyer Opera exterior

Foyer Opera, detail

NACHTMUSIK ⁄ bona nox

Just like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, bona nox is a term associated almost exclusively with Mozart, and part of general education. The x in this title is designed separately and interpreted as the opera house logo. As language games, double meaning, dialectics were one of Mozart’s specific characteristics, his method is adapted and the z in his name substituted alternately by the opera house’s x. This creates a wide range of connotations, the cross shape suggesting the day of Mozart‘s death, for example. Bona nox also points towards the NACHTMUSIK work on the Mannheim castle. Here too typography was used symbolically.

BONANOX
Pani–projector und 9 moving–lights
Produktion planning:
art & stage, Christian Kohlmann

NACHTMUSIK
Projection onto the castle of Mannheim
3 Götschmannprojectors

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