Space Fantasy (Planet in Turmoil; The Martian Chronicles)

Godfrey Reggio's 1982 cult film, with music written by Philip Glass, is a wordless poem depicting modern man's loss of balance with images of unique power.Now Dóra Barta has conceived for the Erkel's stage her own personalised "alienation mythology" about the tragedy of humanity's since then even more destructively wasteful treatment of nature through another silent visual language: that of dance, in a production that is likewise set to Glass's repetitive music. The Hungarian title, which paraphrases Hamlet's apocalyptic words "time is out of joint", harkens back somewhat to the Shakespeare theme for the 2015/16 season.

The choreographer Béla Földi has found similarly exciting material in Ray Bradbury's science fiction work The Martian Chronicles, with the magical/mystical journey accompanied by music that the ensemble Solaris had written for Bradbury's stories thirty years ago and which has been a favourite of discerning music lovers ever since.  

Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass
© 1982 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc. Used by Permission.

The Martian Chronicles is performed with the permission of Ray Bradbury Literary Works LLC.
© 1959, renewed 1977 by Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles is available in Hungarian language from Agave Könyvek and in English language editions from Harper Voyager, HarperCollins and Simon and Schuster.