“Who are you?” Asks Xerxes, the ruler of the great Persian empire, when he is once again disturbed while doing nothing. In response, he gets a sword rammed into his body, once, twice, three times. However, this assassination only means the physical death of the man who lost the gigantic sea battle of Salamis against the Athenians and their allies more than 2500 years ago, who also had the Tower of Babylon destroyed and several colossal buildings built in Persepolis.
In fact, mankind has not gotten rid of him to this day. Magda Woitzuck sends in her radio play Xerxes and the Voices from the Darkness an archaeologist going on, spoken by Alina Fritsch. She digs her way into the life of this man who – as the author puts it – was above all a product of his mother Atossa’s ambition. From there she jumps through time to the crucifixion of Jesus, an outbreak of the plague in the Middle Ages, the discovery of America and even the banishment of women from church choirs. Again and again there is a tangent to Xerxes, which Wolfram Berger plays, it is particularly strong in music.
Georg Friedrich Handel composed an opera Xerxes, As was customary, there are singing parts for soprano castrati. Because women were not allowed to sing, boys were emasculated – by the hundreds of thousands, it is assumed that half a million boys were castrated for this reason in Italy alone. Primarily for the church choirs, but the castrati also took on a number of women’s roles in the new artistic genre of opera.
Xerxes and the Voices from the Darkness is a radio play about the bloodbaths of men, their striving for power, their perfidy. And about the often subtle resistance of women. At the very end, Xerxes also plays a central role in the early history of radio.
Xerxes and the Voices from Darkness, HR 2, Sunday, 4:04 p.m.