Max Klinger: «Ins Nichts zurück», 1880-1884
Back into Nothingness is a monodrama for solo voice, choir and electronic instruments whose title is borrowed from a cycle recorded by the German symbolist Max Klinger (Ins Nichts zurück, 1880-1884). Opus VIII, featuring a body fallen backwards as if levitating, echoes the destiny of the orphan Kaspar Hauser, who made the headlines in Europe at the start of the 19th century.
Kaspar Hauser was the lost child who arrived at the gates of Nuremberg in 1828 after seventeen years held in captivity in a dark hiding place. He repeated one phrase over and over
again – «ein solcher Reiter möchte ich werden, wie mein Vater einer gewesen ist» («I would like to be a knight, just as my father was».) This seventeen-year-old boy had the cognitive and linguistic ability of a two-year-old child and became a guinea pig for science. Since the whole of Europe was following his story, he was nicknamed 'the child of Europe'. Since then, he has continued to inspire poets, from Verlaine to Trakl to Handke, who saw in him an icon of nature poetry, pure and innocent (Verlaine: «Pray for poor Gaspard»).
