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Public Opera

Michael von zur Mühlen, Dr. Ulrike Hartung, Moritz Lobeck, Friederike Brendler

Music theater for a diverse contemporary audience: radical richness of form, crossing cultural boundaries and opening new spaces.

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"Public Opera" is an artist lab workshop that brings together approximately 20 artists and actors drawn from musical theater to address various aesthetic, sociological and institutional questions, with the focus firmly on the audience and the post-pandemic situation. To what extent have the artistic formats and aesthetics specifically developed to cope with the pandemic opened up new ways of making musical theater more accessible for audiences, old and new? How have these formats and aesthetics changed the way in which artists are able to address their audiences? What aesthetic, content-related and programmatic potentials arise from these experiences? What do successful experiences in the field of community building as applied to musical theater look like beyond catering for traditional audiences, and what are the institutional framework conditions that are needed in order to take decisive steps towards making audiences more diverse?

The workshop, which is run by established artists and newcomers from the independent theater community, also has the active involvement of networks in the artistic scene and representatives of major institutions. The overall aim is to drill down into experiences in the round and across different contexts and come up with best practice models for the future.

Impressions

People sit in a discussion group. © Friederike Brendler
A group of people is sitting at a table with laptops. © Friederike Brendler
A group of people is sitting at a table with laptops. © Friederike Brendler
A group of people is sitting at a table with laptops. © Friederike Brendler
Groups of people each sitting at a table. © Friederike Brendler

More detailed documentation of the lab can be found behind the following keywords, which invite you to browse.

Participants

Lab leadership: Michael v. zur Mühlen (Director in Music Theater and Drama), Dr. Ulrike Hartung (Scientific Advice and CO Project Leadership, Research Associate at the Research Institute for Music Theater Bayreuth and spokesperson for the Network for Free Music Theater), Moritz Lobeck (Host and CO Leadership, Program Director for music and media HELLERAU- European Center for the Arts) & Friederike Brendler (Project Assistant, student at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies), artists: Nicolas Berge (Composer and Sound Artist), Masha Buzhor (Dramaturg and Member of the music theater collective Hauen&Stechen), Sven Holm (Director and head of the music theater company Novoflot), Martin Recker&Paul Hauptmeier (composers & co - direction Center for immersive media art Leipzig), Heinrich Horwitz (Director & Performer), Lucia Kilger (Composer & Director Frau Musica Nova Köln), Elaine Mitchener (Composer, Director & Performer) & Julia Reidy (Musician), institutional representatives: Katrin Beck, Manos Tsangaris (Munich Biennale for New Music Theater), Miron Hakenbeck (Dramaturg Staatsoper Stuttgart), Nora Krahl (Artistic Director MiR.Community.Lab at Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen), Dr. Rainer Simon (Special Projects Komische Oper Berlin/Head of Festival Schall&Rauch) & Vendula Nováková (Head of Stimme X Hamburg, Spokesperson Netzwerk Freies Musiktheater), various speakers are among others Tillmann Triest (Audience Research Music Theater) & others