The Requiem is the last composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Unfinished at his death in 1791 at the age of only 35, the work was completed by Franz Xaver Süßmayr, one of his students, and premiered in Vienna in 1793. This musical legacy is the starting point for a modern-day requiem mass. Alain Platel and composer Fabrizio Cassol, together with musicians from Congo, South Africa, Brazil and Europe, created an intercontinental dialogue and an unusual treatment of the musical legacy.

Like an observer of her own farewell ritual, a woman with the abbreviated name L. – for whom the “L” in the work’s title stands – gazes from a screen onto the stage. In the last moments before her death, slow-motion sleep and waking states appear. The piece represents a strangely fascinating symbiosis of intoxicating concert and documentary celebration of the dead.

Alain Platel, born in 1956 and still living in the Flemish city of Ghent, is one of the most important choreographers of our time. In 1984 he founded the Compagnie les ballets C de la B in his hometown, which for years has undoubtedly been one of the most successful dance and theater companies in the world. At euro-scene Leipzig, Alain Platel has been a guest for the 9th time since 1996 and most recently showed “En avant, marche!” (“Forward, march!”, 2015).