After disowning his youngest daughter, Cordelia, the aging King Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his remaining daughters, Goneril and Regan. Planning to live alternately with each, Lear quickly finds himself powerless as the two, resentful of his presence and unpredictability, impose harsh conditions that strip him of dignity and control. King Lear is a searing study of violence and a radical dissection of both social structures and personal relationships in vacuous times of transition of power. This is Gramsci’s “time of monsters,” when the old world is dying and the new has yet to be born. It is a world in which the old gods refuse to go quietly, unleashing madness and chaos instead.
The original music on the recording is performed by Blaž Celarec, Gregor Cvetko, Boštjan Gombač, Ivana Percan Kodarin, Alma Polič and Andraž Polič.
Music used in the performance: O solitude, my sweetest choice by Henry Purcell performed by Andreas Scholl and Ensemble Artaserse and Everybody Loves Somebody performed by Dean Martin.