DIRECTING CONCEPTS
for Opera
I have been working on these concepts for the past two years. Sometimes alone, and also with beautiful colleagues working in intertwined areas such as costume, stage design and music.
Much of our heart has been poured into these creations, that are just waiting to shine on stage.
If you would like to read further, feel free to drop me a message. Of course, I am open for editing and creating concepts for other pieces.
L'Elisir d'Amore, Donizetti
A Charmingly Dark Comedy
“Essere Bel Cuore = be a heart of beauty,” advertisement for the Beauty Heart sect.
What sounds like a pseudo-foreign advertising slogan for a spiritual self-improvement cult soon turns out to be an ironically broken leitmotif: a game of manipulation, between promises of happiness and disciplining order...
Idomeneo, Mozart
ID-MENEO
Walk-in musical theater based on motifs from Mozart's Idomeneo
An interactive room installation with live opera singing, electroacoustic soundscape, and performative elements. The audience moves as “spect-actors” in small groups of about 10-15 people, “canon admission,” through three rooms, approaching the following questions:
What does home mean?
What does belonging mean?
How does exclusion feel when you are the one being excluded?
Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Weill
A postcolonial continuation of Brechtian aesthetics in contemporary discourses.
Widow Begbick, as a medium, guides the audience through the collective subconscious.
In the systemic overlaps of capitalism, colonialism, and religion, the occupied earth is exploited and destroyed.
"Where Shall We Go?" culminates in the final plea: How can we—with this historical knowledge extending into the present—as we sail back into reality with Fatty and Moses, take responsibility?
Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Offenbach
An Inclusive Vision turns Shattered Illusions.
“A change in the gaze changes that which the gaze views [. . .]. The truth is not visible in the body, but only one truth.”
(Markus Dederich, Körper, Kultur und Behinderung: Eine Einführung in die Disability Studies)
What if the marginalized characters in Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann—the disabled Olympia, the ostracized sex worker Giulietta, and the silenced Antonia—were no
longer victims, but agents of resistance?
Orphée et Eurydice, Gluck
Memory, resistance, and the power of transformation.
A transcendent musical theater piece about love,
loss,
and hope
in the face of war.
Picture A Day Like This, Benjamin
"I said to them: No. There was no death."
The possibility of motherhood is examined in light of personal loss, postpartum depression, and societal expectations.
As part of the production of Picture A Day Like This, a moderated discussion will be held on the topics of motherhood, mental health, and socio-political expectations of women. Guests from Bühnenmütter e.V. and Selbstbestimmt Steril e.V. will share their perspectives and experiences.
L'Orfeo, Monteverdi
Originating L'Orfeo
“Someone, I tell you, will remember us, even in another time.” (Sappho)
Originating L'Orfeo is a musical-theatrical reflection on matriarchal origins and ancient narrative forms, which, through Sappho's poetic gaze, ventures a reinterpretation of the Orpheus myth that is critical of colonialism.
The piece would be musically arranged and incorporate Thracian music.
Lulu, Berg
Radical - Feminist - Sexy
Lulu, a figure born of clay, undergoes a radical transformation: accompanied by a powerful snake, she strips herself layer by layer of projections and power structures.
With surreal images, reflections, and the deconstruction of the classic narrative, the production creates a world between sensual liberation and social control.