New Scenes VII

New Scenes VII

What does a future look like in which researchers aren’t just creating with artificial intelligence, but have also learned to copy people at the computer? This scenario was put forth by economist Robin Hanson in his book The Age of Em – Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth. Composer Zara Ali from Memphis, Tennessee is currently working on bringing Hanson’s physical-digital hybrids to the stage in what she describes as a sort of “spherical installation” that will place the audience in the perceptual world of these “Ems”. Together with author Hannah Dübgen, Ali is one of the three teams working on next-generation musical theatre for the seventh edition of the NEW SCENES. “We want to make something truly special, not the typical opera,” says the 28-year-old composer. Ali, who studied philosophy at Columbia University parallel to her musical education, frequently experiments with electronics, and works on interdisciplinary projects with string quartets and dancers – and now, for the first time, at an opera house. Huihui Cheng, who attended a school for musically gifted children in Beijing at the age of 14, is particularly interested in the performative potential of compositions. She refers to her past works as “theatrically expanded pieces of music”, such as “Me Du Ça” – part of a series on Greek mythology. Cheng worked with a designer to change the Medusa singer’s hair from snakes into tubes that can be played like flutes. Like Ali, Cheng is interested in technological advancements and the possibilities these bring to the stage. She recalls recently seeing a drone at an Offenbach opera, emphasising that the goal of such methods should be “to convey the beauty of the music and the eternity of emotions”. An opera like the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she says, offers the ideal conditions for exploring innovative approaches. Haukur Þór Harðarson, from Iceland and living in Berlin, co-founder of the composition collective Errata, thinks it’s exciting when New Theatre ...

New Scenes VII

What does a future look like in which researchers aren’t just creating with artificial intelligence, but have also learned to copy people at the computer? This scenario was put forth by economist Robin Hanson in his book The Age of Em – Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth. Composer Zara Ali from Memphis, Tennessee is currently working on bringing Hanson’s physical-digital hybrids to the stage in what she describes as a sort of “spherical installation” that will place the audience in the perceptual world of these “Ems”. Together with author Hannah Dübgen, Ali is one of the three teams working on next-generation musical theatre for the seventh edition of the NEW SCENES. “We want to make something truly special, not the typical opera,” says the 28-year-old composer. Ali, who studied philosophy at Columbia University parallel to her musical education, frequently experiments with electronics, and works on interdisciplinary projects with string quartets and dancers – and now, for the first time, at an opera house. Huihui Cheng, who attended a school for musically gifted children in Beijing at the age of 14, is particularly interested in the performative potential of compositions. She refers to her past works as “theatrically expanded pieces of music”, such as “Me Du Ça” – part of a series on Greek mythology. Cheng worked with a designer to change the Medusa singer’s hair from snakes into tubes that can be played like flutes. Like Ali, Cheng is interested in technological advancements and the possibilities these bring to the stage. She recalls recently seeing a drone at an Offenbach opera, emphasising that the goal of such methods should be “to convey the beauty of the music and the eternity of emotions”. An opera like the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she says, offers the ideal conditions for exploring innovative approaches. Haukur Þór Harðarson, from Iceland and living in Berlin, co-founder of the composition collective Errata, thinks it’s exciting when New Theatre ...

New Scenes VII

What does a future look like in which researchers aren’t just creating with artificial intelligence, but have also learned to copy people at the computer? This scenario was put forth by economist Robin Hanson in his book The Age of Em – Work, Love and Life when Robots Rule the Earth. Composer Zara Ali from Memphis, Tennessee is currently working on bringing Hanson’s physical-digital hybrids to the stage in what she describes as a sort of “spherical installation” that will place the audience in the perceptual world of these “Ems”. Together with author Hannah Dübgen, Ali is one of the three teams working on next-generation musical theatre for the seventh edition of the NEW SCENES. “We want to make something truly special, not the typical opera,” says the 28-year-old composer. Ali, who studied philosophy at Columbia University parallel to her musical education, frequently experiments with electronics, and works on interdisciplinary projects with string quartets and dancers – and now, for the first time, at an opera house. Huihui Cheng, who attended a school for musically gifted children in Beijing at the age of 14, is particularly interested in the performative potential of compositions. She refers to her past works as “theatrically expanded pieces of music”, such as “Me Du Ça” – part of a series on Greek mythology. Cheng worked with a designer to change the Medusa singer’s hair from snakes into tubes that can be played like flutes. Like Ali, Cheng is interested in technological advancements and the possibilities these bring to the stage. She recalls recently seeing a drone at an Offenbach opera, emphasising that the goal of such methods should be “to convey the beauty of the music and the eternity of emotions”. An opera like the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she says, offers the ideal conditions for exploring innovative approaches. Haukur Þór Harðarson, from Iceland and living in Berlin, co-founder of the composition collective Errata, thinks it’s exciting when New Theatre ...

Mu­se­ums­kon­zert VII

Since 2010, ensembles of the Staatskapelle have been performing in the Bode Museum. The concerts, lasting just over an hour, take place in the Gobelin Hall and feature music from past centuries. Visitors can combine the concerts with other museum activities, such as an exhibition visit or a meal at the museum café.

Kam­mer­kon­zert VII

For more than six decades, the chamber concerts by musicians from the Staatskapelle have been a constant feature of the Staatsoper programme. This season, ensembles have come together to select music from different periods, styles and cultures under the theme of ‘playing together’. On eleven dates in the Apollosaal, which with its special atmosphere is an ideal venue for chamber music and communicative interaction between players and listeners, works from the Baroque to the present day will be performed in constellations that are both exciting and harmonious, in which tangible contrasts play just as important a role as a common resonance and the balancing of opposites.

Abon­ne­ment­kon­zert VII

In music, light and shadow can be distributed in a special way. The two outer works are characterized by brightness and luminosity, both Anton Webern's tone poem Im Sommerwind from 1904, which has outgrown the late Romantic tradition to which the later twelve-tone composer was committed at the beginning of his career, and Antonín Dvořák's 6th Symphony from 1880, which reveals Brahms as a role model, but gains its own character with its sounds borrowed from Bohemian folklore. Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, a work with a strikingly darker timbre, is placed in between and shows the “serious Mozart” who, for all his cosmopolitanism and joy of playing, also reveals many an abyss.

Abon­ne­ment­kon­zert VII

In music, light and shadow can be distributed in a special way. The two outer works are characterized by brightness and luminosity, both Anton Webern's tone poem Im Sommerwind from 1904, which has outgrown the late Romantic tradition to which the later twelve-tone composer was committed at the beginning of his career, and Antonín Dvořák's 6th Symphony from 1880, which reveals Brahms as a role model, but gains its own character with its sounds borrowed from Bohemian folklore. Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, a work with a strikingly darker timbre, is placed in between and shows the “serious Mozart” who, for all his cosmopolitanism and joy of playing, also reveals many an abyss.

Avant-scènes

Autumn Opera Scenes

Outstanding performers from the first year of Guildhall School’s Opera Course present classical and contemporary operatic excerpts with piano accompaniment.

Autumn Opera Scenes

Outstanding performers from the first year of Guildhall School’s Opera Course present classical and contemporary operatic excerpts with piano accompaniment.