He first submitted his designs in early 2020, simply as he was studying about how Wuhan, China — a metropolis of roughly 8.5 million individuals — was shutting down due to Covid-19. He couldn’t think about that; it will be like New York Metropolis doing the identical. As soon as that occurred too, he started to see pop-up hospitals much like the one he had conceived for “Doppelganger.”
Now it has taken on an eerie resonance. Set vaguely within the first half of the twentieth century, the manufacturing, with its rows and rows of beds, looks as if a darkly acquainted sight, particularly to New Yorkers. And, Levine mentioned, the isolation of a short lived hospital — whether or not throughout a struggle, as in “Doppelganger,” or someplace just like the Javits Middle within the early days of the pandemic — is supported, even amplified, by Schubert’s music.
“There’s one thing lonely about these songs,” Levine mentioned, “and there’s one thing fairly lonely about this house.”
Kaufmann shall be calmly amplified, however the idea of “Doppelganger” nonetheless depends on a performer along with his immense presence, Audi mentioned. “You want a persona like this,” he added, “as a result of he’s alone onstage, and that is all happening inside his head.”
He received’t be totally alone. Among the many beds shall be dancers, who play the components of fellow troopers, in addition to actors enjoying hospital employees. And Schubert’s rating shall be joined by Mathis Nitschke’s authentic music — which joins the songs collectively, choosing up the harmonic thread of 1 and transitioning to that of the subsequent. (Deutsch additionally has a showcase within the type of an interlude pulled from a late Schubert piano sonata.)
All that is doable, Kaufmann mentioned, as a result of “Schwanengesang” isn’t actually a cycle. “We’re allowed to do one thing completely different with it,” he added, in a collaborative course of amongst mates. “That’s our privilege, that we are able to current our concepts in a brand new package deal.”
