NEWSLETTER 06/19

One of the biggest university projects of the year is just around the corner: the annual "Grand Summer Opera" will celebrate its premiere on June 2 (the B premiere with a different cast on June 7) and will be performed a total of seven times. The Master's students in the opera class will graduate with the production of Otto Nicolai's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" before they head off to the opera houses in the coming season.

The subject of the opera takes us into a 16th century middle-class milieu that rejects outsiders and strangers. The intrusion of an eccentric and provocateur shakes the seemingly functioning society in its basic values and puts it to the test.

For conductor Willem Wentzel, the themes are timeless: "It's about the social decline of impoverished nobility as exemplified by Falstaff, the nouveau riche and petty bourgeois morality in the form of the Reich couple, boredom and the danger of monotony in relationships, as seen in Mrs. Fluth, but growing up, which we can observe in Anna Reich, also plays a role - do our private and social issues look so different today?"

In an interview with dramaturgy student Flavia Wolfgramm, director Wolfgang Ansel explains what particularly appeals to him about Shakepeare's material: "How a man enters this society out of social and psychological hardship and experiences a rejecting attitude, but at the same time gradually rubs off on people's private lives. They live in contradiction: on the one hand they reject the foreign, on the other hand they have a deep longing for the free-spirited, cheeky character that Falstaff represents for them. They are attracted to him, but deny this or do not want to admit it. Instead, they destroy him, expose him. This contradiction really appealed to me."

Wolfgang Ansel would like to give the audience "fun and concern" along the way. "If I can manage that, it's a lot."

"The focus here is not just on theater, concerts and dance! Rather, it is a meeting place for everyone in the city - whether in the in-house café or the bar on the roof terrace," enthuses Jessica Bertram about the Opéra National de Lyon.
Together with her fellow students from the Institute of Cultural and Media Management as well as Prof. Dr. Martin Zierold and Prof. Dr. Reinhard Flender, she visited France's second largest city on the Rhône and Saône rivers in May, where they had the opportunity to talk to the artistic director Serge Dorny.

Jessica, who is now completing her Master's degree in Cultural and Media Management after studying school music, is particularly fascinated by the special atmosphere and the role of the opera house for the city's inhabitants: "You can't miss it. The building towers impressively in the middle of the city center. One thing runs through it - black. From the floor in front of the building, where Lyon's breakdance scene meets to train and blast their hip-hop beats on the forecourt, to the washbasin inside the building - everything is black. Escalators lead the visitors into the steeply arranged hall, which is of course also completely black and can accommodate up to 1,100 people.
In addition to the interesting conversations about all kinds of technical matters, you can sense that people think differently here than in 'classic opera houses'. This place is alive, it's not uncool or dusty to go to the opera - on the contrary: people are proud to have such a house in the city."

On June 22, the summer sound night will take you into traditional and contemporary Korean soundscapes. It will be a long night of world music with around 35 concerts from different parts of the world.

The encounter and collaboration with our guests from South Korea will be the main theme. A delegation of around 18 Korean students and teachers from Seoul National University will be performing in seven concerts with traditional and classical instruments, with old and new works and also making music together with our students.

Benjamin Helmer - composer and since April 2017 in the doctoral program for Dr.sc.mus. at the HfMT - first came into contact with Korean music ten years ago during his studies in Mannheim and felt deeply inspired: The music is very complex in its harmonies and rhythms, but above all the traditional instruments cast a spell over him. They have a kind of roughness that reminds him of the human voice with all its inconsistencies. Following his "desire for more", he spent two semesters at the Department of Traditional Korean Music at Seoul National University in 2011/12, where he was able to immerse himself deeply in the musical dialog. On the one hand, he wrote several works for traditional instruments, which were performed directly, and on the other, he received lessons in playing various instruments. The connections from this time continue to this day, and so there are regular collaborations with Korea. He is particularly looking forward to visiting the department at the HfMT and recommends every student to make contact.

We also wish you interesting impressions when the distant comes close this night!

Maurice Lenhard is studying musical theater directing and can be seen on June 20, 22 and 23 with his final production "Zwei Stunden nach Mitternacht" at the Theater in der Marzipanfabrik.

He recommends:
"lick my wounds" on June 13 at the Thalia in Gaußstraße

Two people move between rudimentary two-dimensional parts of the stage. They discuss, drink wine and coffee, sometimes impersonate Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his lover Armin, themselves or sometimes nothing at all. Meera Theunert and her performers Franz-Xaver Franz and Martin Mutschler catapult and drag themes that Fassbinder deals with in his film "Deutschland im Herbst" (Germany in Autumn) into our small, present-day reality in several rounds. Razor-sharp, angry and with a liberatingly radical trinity and at the same time subtlety, "leck mir die wunden" (lick my wounds) makes you laugh in a way that resonates thoughtfully for a long time. And there are some frighteningly beautiful hits to boot.
An evening that alone makes a visit to the Körber Studio Neue Regie worthwhile and that is sure to be a hit on June 13, 2019.