"When I heard Fabio Nieder's 'The devourer of images' for the very first time, I did not know the plot of this opera, which will be premiered in Salzburg in 2015. I also was not aware that this music is one part of several of that opera. And Nieder was unknown to me, too. But I made the decision to release the music "The devourer of images" on Winter & Winter.
Fabio Nieder created dream sequences, which gave my fantasy wings.
In December 2010 I finally met Fabio Nieder and so I learned about the background. All centres around Vito von Thuemmel, born 1886, a painter from Triest, Italy (or Austria?), a brilliant outsider, who lost his mind and died in a madhouse in 1949. His last drawings — small dazzing images with overwhelming power — inspired Nieder to create that work. Nieder (or is it Thuemmel?) throws away each of the 18 images into the (sound-) universe and devours the images, he banishes the images into his subconscious (under water), to get rid of it...Claudio Magris has written the libretto for Fabio Nieder's piece. Magris' outstanding play about Thuemmel (in Italy called Vito Timmel) is published under the title 'Die Ausstellung' (The Exhibition). Magris offers Nieder the freedom of choice. Nieder uses excerpts of Magris' text for his work. The music, the story, the sounds seems so thrillingly foreign and at the same time so familiar to me, perhaps because Nieder is talking in his music in such an emphatic beautiful way about love, dreams, loss, death and life."
Stefan Winter
