The protagonist of this ballet is overcome by the urgent desire to question his thought, his feelings and his entire life. After the death of his young wife he feels compelled to test new things, to transcend society’s accepted boundaries and give in to his burning need to act upon his unfulfilled erotic fantasies.  Richard Wherlock choreographs a narrative ballet based on Thomas Mann’s autobiographically influenced novella of an artist that was written between June 1911 and July 1912 and published in the «Neue Rundschau» in October 1912. It is strongly influenced by the author’s own experiences including the Mann family’s holidays in Venice and the news of the death of the composer Gustav Mahler, whom Mann had chosen as the model for his description of the character of Aschenbach.