William Kentridge Untitled (Drawing from Wozzeck 4), 2016 Charcoal and red pencil on Velin Arches Cover White (440gsm) Work: 121 x 160 cm
Kentridge’s Untitled (Drawing from “Wozzeck” 4) is a charcoal drawing that was used as a projected backdrop in the recent critically acclaimed production of the Alban Berg opera, Wozzeck. Kentridge chose to set the opera, based on the 1837 Buchner play of the same title, at the time of "The Great War" in Europe, as he found the play “a premonition of the war to come”. The aesthetic of this production is characterised by bleak landscapes, denuded of their trees and scarred by shell craters. Kentridge was inspired by documentary photographs, which depict the ravaged battlefields of Flanders. He explains that the opera had “to meet a material for it to take fire - with Wozzeck, it’s the roughness of charcoal drawing. So all of the projections are made out of charcoal drawings and there’s something in the graininess of the drawing itself that echoes both with the music, obviously, but also with the world that it’s depicting – of things transforming, of sounds under the earth.” The opera premiered at the Salzburger Festspiele in July 2017 and is a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto.
