Das Werk

Kaprun is not only a place where 155 people died in the year 2000, when a cable car burst into flames, as described in Elfriede Jelinek's play In the Alps. It is also the site of one of the world's largest hydroelectric power stations - the titular "Plant" of Jelinek's final play in her alpine trilogy - "a virtually unparalleled challenge to nature, to be dominated by technology.... construction began in the 1920s, and the effort was intensified during the Nazi regime..., initially with enlisted workers, but later using forced laborers, and eventually prisoners of war ... The official death toll during the construction of this power plant is 160. But these records only begin after the war, when the workers - some of them former Nazis unable to find employment anywhere else - were already much better equipped. The total number of casualties is much higher.... (Kaprun) entailed a slew of national myths which were literally based on the skeletons and exploitation of the dead, and the fact that those who died had become a sacrifice to nature, as many of them died in avalanches. Directly or indirectly they died at the hand of nature, whereas the tourists in the cable car died because of technology within nature.» (Elfriede Jelinek)