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Thomas Vinterberg, director of the Dogma feature film 'Festen' and the theatrical version of the same script, commissioned Zbigniew Preisner to write the score for the sequel to 'Festen', titled 'The Funeral' (Das Begräbnis) which was premiered at the Burgtheater, Vienna, on 6 March 2010. Preisner had previously worked with Vinterberg when he wrote the music for his feature film 'It's All About Love' in 2004. 'The Funeral' will be in the repertory of the Burgtheater for two years and will be performed in other countries from 2011 onwards.

This time around, Vinterberg allowed Preisner to approach the score for his new play, as if it were a film score, and the result was a suite of pieces, from which Preisner has now compiled a CD titled 'Danse Macabre'. The CD contains 18 tracks featuring solos for cello (Adam Klocek) and trumpet (Mathias Eick) and the voices of young countertenors Marcel and Nikodem Legun, with the Symphonic Orchestra of the Calisia Philharmonic.

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Das Begräbnis (The Funeral)

Helge is dead. His wife Else and their children Christian, Michael and Helene are being reunited for the first time in ten years at their father’s funeral. This get-together is taking place in the very same building, where Christian had (on Helge’s 60th birthday) severely accused his father, claiming that he and his twin sister had been sexually abused by him for years when they were little. Back then, Christian’s brother Michael had beaten up their father in the morning after the birthday party and thrown him out of the house. For the funeral, Christian has arrived with his wife Pia from Paris, while Michael is bringing his new girlfriend Sofie and Henning, a son from his first marriage. Kim, the cook, is catering to the needs of the mourners at the abandoned hotel. But suddenly, mysterious events are happening. There seems to be a curse on the family, putting everyone’s nerves to the test.

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In 1997, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg achieved worldwide fame with his Dogma-film Festen (The Party). As of today, the screenplay of Festen has been staged at many theatres. Das Begräbnis (The Funeral), written by Vinterberg and his co-author Mogens Rukov, continues the tale of the Klingenfeldt-Hansen family, this time not on the movie screen, but on the theatre stage.