Opera and its double

“Opera and its double” will be performed in a mixed-media version set up especially for the occasion at the Utopia München.

Originally the opera “Opera, Opera, Opera! revenants and revolutions” by Ole Hübner (composition) and Thomas Köck (text) was supposed to celebrate its world premiere during the Munich Biennale in May, and afterwards also be performed at Oper Halle as part of their program schedule. Both the world premiere and subsequent performances had to be cancelled for well-known reasons. The excerpts of the work produced with the original cast by MDR KLASSIK in collaboration with Oper Halle at the beginning of September at Händelhalle form the acoustic foundation for the film segments. The premiere broadcast of the excerpts on radio was on October 24 as part of the MDR KLASSIK Opernmagazin program. On November 12th at 10.05 pm our media partner BR-KLASSIK in the format Horizonte took over the MDR broadcast with excerpts from “Opera, Opera, Opera! revenants and revolutions”.

Our times appear to be a sheer endless present – a continuing state of crisis, where the future is perceived more as a threat than a promise. Simultaneously, new demands on this possible future are constantly being voiced, demands that stem from the day-to-day impotence felt by every individual faced with the overwhelming problems. “Opera and its double” confronts this ambivalent situation: At a point far in the future, a choir with partial amnesia converses with themselves and with a cyborg about where they come from, how everything came about, and where they are headed to. Are we in an ice age or a war? Where were we on the last day? In an airplane? No, on a train platform – or part of a furious fisherman choir in the middle of a grand opera in 1830, which supposedly triggered a revolution and the founding of Belgium. The cyborg is tormented by stored memories and searching for answers, and the choir also grapples with its condition. Fragments, infestations, individual and collective remembrances arise from its murky memory. In the face of these moments, questions are posed over and over again: Which social potential does a mutual voice still have? Where should all of these historical turning points and utopian desires go in light of the rubble and human failures?