The revelry on the eve of the great war is like a dance in the face of downfall. The Day Before takes us right into the heart of this shimmering eve of the apocalypse, where the audience, performers, percussionists, and a choir of young women unite as a community bound by fate. Homer’s Illiad, the primal myth of warlike violence, serves as the blueprint for an intoxicating celebration on the brink of the abyss.

Composer Brigitta Muntendorf, director Christiane Jatahy, and writer Rosa Montero scrutinise the ancient epic of heroic male violence, following the visionary reading of French philosopher Simone Weil: Can there be a future without all-powerful saviors? How can hope for healing and a better future be kept alive in the face of ruin?

The creative use of 3D audio, AI voice-cloning and live camera footage concentrate voices, sounds, noises, movement, and images into an immersive space that unfolds its own reality somewhere between fiction and reality. The looming danger generates a vibrant energy—a sense of political community—that makes a different, better future seem possible.

For The Day Before isn’t just a warning of catastrophe but a ritual for the future – a reminder that every transformation begins with a decision. What will have been is up to us.

The Day Before is the first joint production by Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy and German-Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf, in collaboration with Spanish journalist, activist, and writer Rosa Montero. This international, three-generation trio confronts the myth of the Iliad—one of the best-known and most brutal texts in European literature—with the fault lines of a global present marked by male violence, creating an immersive, political, and participatory music theater performance.

A production by Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien and KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen. In coproduction with Festival Musica (Strasbourg) and Les Percussions de Strasbourg. Composition commissioned by Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien and Festival Musica (Strasbourg). Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. With the kind support of d&b audiotechnik.