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New Scenes VII

A Chamber Opera Triptych by Zara Ali, Haukur þór Harðarson, Huihui Cheng

Buy tickets for this production
01
Thursday
May
20:00 - 22:00
€ 25.00 / reduced € 10.00
Buy tickets
Free choice of seats.
Information about the work

Cave
Chamber opera by Haukur þór Harðarson
with a libretto by Sophie Fetokaki

Desert of Water
Chamber opera by Huihui Cheng
with a libretto by Giuliana Kiersz

What Joy
Chamber opera by Zara Ali
with a libretto by Hannah Dübgen

World premiere: 27 April 2025 in the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin

approx. 2 hours 15 minutes / one interval

In English with German and English surtitles

7:30 p.m.: Introduction (15 minutes) in German in the wardrobe hall of the Tischlerei

recommended from 15 years
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Cast
  • Project Management, Mentorship Directing
    Prof. Claus Unzen
  • Mentorship Directing
    Prof. Corinna von Rad
    Sven Holm
  • Set design
  • Costume design
  • Dramaturgy
  • Head of Studies
    Peter Meiser
  • Musical direction and rehearsals
    Byron Knutson
Cave
Desert of Water
  • Composition
  • Text
  • Conductor
    Rira Kim
  • Director
    Ruth Asralda
  • Dramaturgy
    Sara Zimmermann
  • The Traveller
  • The Woman Who Stays
    Janka Watermann
  • The Wanderer
    Maria Vidal
  • The Man Who Drowned
    Darius Herrmann
  • Playing
    Studierende der Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler
What Joy
  • Composition
  • Text
  • Conductor
    Chunyi Zhao
  • Director
  • Choreographer
    Eugenii Livanskii
  • Video concept, video production
    Markus Kanzler
    Sara Culmann
  • Live Camera
    Maxim Pechersky
  • Dramaturgy
  • Orange
    Lilian von der Nahmer
  • Saffron
    Elizabeth Kim
  • Langoustine
  • The Conductor
    Yutong Wei
  • Mediatrix
    Shaiyla Taneja
  • Playing
    Studierende der Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler
Our thanks to our partners

International Composition Competition of the Deutsche Oper Berlin in co-operation with the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin

01
Thursday
May
20:00 - 22:00
€ 25.00 / reduced € 10.00
Buy tickets
Free choice of seats.
Cast
  • Project Management, Mentorship Directing
    Prof. Claus Unzen
  • Mentorship Directing
    Prof. Corinna von Rad
    Sven Holm
  • Set design
  • Costume design
  • Dramaturgy
  • Head of Studies
    Peter Meiser
  • Musical direction and rehearsals
    Byron Knutson
Cave
Desert of Water
  • Composition
  • Text
  • Conductor
    Rira Kim
  • Director
    Ruth Asralda
  • Dramaturgy
    Sara Zimmermann
  • The Traveller
  • The Woman Who Stays
    Janka Watermann
  • The Wanderer
    Maria Vidal
  • The Man Who Drowned
    Darius Herrmann
  • Playing
    Studierende der Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler
What Joy
  • Composition
  • Text
  • Conductor
    Chunyi Zhao
  • Director
  • Choreographer
    Eugenii Livanskii
  • Video concept, video production
    Markus Kanzler
    Sara Culmann
  • Live Camera
    Maxim Pechersky
  • Dramaturgy
  • Orange
    Lilian von der Nahmer
  • Saffron
    Elizabeth Kim
  • Langoustine
  • The Conductor
    Yutong Wei
  • Mediatrix
    Shaiyla Taneja
  • Playing
    Studierende der Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler
the content

What topics are occupying the young generation of artists? What burning questions are waiting to be addressed on the music theatre stage? What scenes, texts, sounds and images are needed to do so? To answer these questions, the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin is being transformed into the future laboratory of the NEW SCENES: as part of an international competition in summer 2023, three teams of composers and authors were selected to write a new piece of music theatre that will be premiered as part of a three-part evening at the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The three pieces will be performed, sung and staged by students of the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music Berlin, with whom the Deutsche Oper Berlin is now cooperating for the seventh time as part of NEW SCENES.

The evening opens with CAVE, an examination of the principles of resistance. Based on Sophocles' “Antigone”, composer Haukur þór Harðarson and librettist Sophie Fetokaki have developed a contemporary reflection on the possibilities of rebellion in a hostile environment, establishing a connection to the disruptive power of civil activism. At the same time, the ancient protagonist is psychologically examined and thus undergoes a methodical process of coming to terms with her past. The composition embeds this introspection in atmospherically delicate sounds and constantly circling moods. The result is a multiple encounter of the mythical figure Antigone with herself and with the outside world.

DESERT OF WATER tells the story of a village that has to be evacuated before flooding. Powerlessly, the characters cling to an everyday life that is increasingly falling apart, and they confront the inevitable threat in different ways: While most of them face the fact that they have to leave their homes in order to survive, one resident is not prepared to do so and clings to her living space to the bitter end. The chamber opera by composer Huihui Cheng and librettist Giuliana Kiersz describes conditions in an extreme situation and deals with the dilemma of confronting an all-encompassing catastrophe. Tension-filled soundscapes, symbolic nature poetry and a wide range of vocal techniques bring to life the complex tension of a threatening situation, evoking associations with the current issues of climate change, displacement and identity.

WHAT JOY, a ‘spherical installation’ in the words of composer Zara Ali, brings the series to a close. Together with librettist Hannah Dübgen, she created a piece of music theatre about the search for new aesthetic perspectives in a hyper-digitalised world. The plot tells of cybernetically augmented humans who can modify and expand their spectrum of perception and thus adopt a new relationship to the world and their own emotional access to it. This transhumanist hybridity is also reflected in the music, where borrowings from historical baroque music collide or merge with electronic sounds and classical playing and singing styles are transformed to the extreme. In these ambiguous spaces, WHAT JOY explores core elements of human sensuality and pleasures.

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New Scenes VII
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