Richard Wagner

On the occasion of the centenary of the "great master's" birthday in 1913, the film presents for the first time a comprehensive portrait of the composer. For copyright reasons, Richard Wagner's original compositions could not be used for the music. Giuseppe Becce, who, thanks to his physical resemblance, plays the role of the composer himself, and proposed to compose a score that follows the work of Wagner, but at the same time is different enough from the source material so that there would be no legal consequences.

Previous editions of Silent Nights featured Richard Wagner with the original music; this year, however, this role has been taken on by two real musicians: one of our regular performers, the composer and multi-instrumentalist Ian Mikyska, who will be introducing his colleague Timofey Golev for the first time – a pianist and composer whose repertoire ranges from contemporary classical music through jazz to pure improvisation.