The Dwindling Suppleness of Lips

In the spring of 1997, during a tour of his orchestra to Israel, a bass player with the Deutsche Oper Berlin signed his hotel bill as "Adolf Hitler". What was meant as a joke, turns into a world wide scandal - and becomes the point of departure for Delius' dramatization of his novel Die Flatterzunge (The flapping tongue). There, the bass player turns into a trombone player, rehearsing his defense speech at home after getting fired on the spot: The gradual fabrication of thoughts while talking about the thoughtless deed.

"Delius takes artistic license to invent a potential character, matching the authentic case, and to equip him with a musician's biography, full of professional humiliations, administrative frustration, and sexual indignities.» (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

"An illuminating piece about the forever non-normal German normality.» (Die Zeit)