Nico and the Navigators with a Kafka project at the Kasseler Musiktage

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) is considered by many to be the quintessential 20th-century writer. He even has an adjective named after him. The term ‘Kafkaesque’ is used to describe a world in which people feel at the mercy of unfathomable power structures – a very modern experience. Kafka continues to have an impact to this day. This also applies to music, although he described himself as unmusical. A fascinating testimony to his legacy was presented at the Kasseler Musiktage festival on Saturday.

In the UK14, the piece ‘Post. Kafka’ by the independent Berlin theatre ensemble Nico and the Navigators was captivating. Two works formed the basis for the spoken word performance on the 100th anniversary of the author's death. The first was György Kurtág's Kafka Fragments for Soprano and Violin, premiered in 1987.

In this outstanding example of a musical response to Kafka, the Hungarian composer transforms short notes by Kafka into a mosaic of condensed expression, into song dramas in the smallest of spaces. The second ingredient was Kafka's ‘Letter to His Father’, written in 1919, never delivered to the addressee, a perfect template for psychological in-depth drilling and Freudian analysis. It is about the fear of the overpowering father, about the ‘feeling of nothingness’ that often dominates the poor son.

The way Herdís Anna Jónasdóttir (soprano), Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir (violin) and Annedore Kleist (actress) connected Kurtág's fragments and the letter was brilliant. The three actresses, dressed in light brown uniforms, each fulfilled their part with bravura while also acting together. Every nuance, every gesture, every look, every movement and constellation was a sophisticated part of a performance that ranged from tentative to exalted, and was unwieldy in the best sense of the word.

The project by Nicola Hümpel (artistic director, costume), Oliver Proske (technical director), Andreas Hillger (dramaturgy) and Orli Baruch was characterised by a high degree of precision. The 60 or so guests who gave a great deal of applause at the end not only experienced a strong aesthetic despite all the frugality, but also many memorable Kafka sentences such as: ‘There are countless hiding places, only one rescue, but the possibilities of rescue are as many as the hiding places.’