Author: Clara Fandel

For health reasons, Prof. Dr Ahmad Milad Karimi unfortunately had to cancel his participation in the upcoming edition of the WUNDERKAMMER trilogy. We are very pleased that we have now been able to secure Prof. Dr Ufuk Topkara (Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology, HU Berlin) for the performance on 27 June and Prof. Dr Mira Sievers from the University of Hamburg (Department of Religions) for 28 June. There are still a few tickets left in the webshop!

Continue reading "PrOF. DR. MIRA SIEVERS UND PROF. DR. UFUK TOPKARA At WUNDERKAMMER"

Our congratulations: With the opera for children “Sagt der Walfisch zum Thunfisch” by composer Thierry Tidrow, 2018 Berlin Opera Prize winner for “Prothesen der Autonomie. An SCI-FI opera about the history of opera and its phallocentric view”, NEST – the Vienna State Opera’s new venue for young audiences – will open in December!

Continue reading "Berliner Opernpreisträger AT WIENER STAATSOPER"

Congratulations to the entire HAYDAR TANZT / HAYDAR’IN DANSI team on yesterday’s derniére of a completely sold-out première series! And we are very happy: The production will return to the studio from 27 February to 27 April 2025! We will keep you up to date on the start of advance ticket sales for the revival in our newsletter: www.neukoellneroper.de/newsletter/

Continue reading "READAPTATION OF Haydar Tanzt iN FebruarY 2025"

As part of the opening weekend of the Eierhäusch, we are delighted to honour the cooperation between Neuköllner Oper and Spreepark Artspace after three years of successful collaboration with the concert “Love Park” on 24 March 2024, followed by a discussion with the artists.

Start: 11 am

Venue: Eierhäuschen

On 21 and 22 September, as part of the WUNDERKAMMER series “Im Prinzip Hoffnung”, a ship will sail to the Spreepark and explore ideas for a hopeful future in workshops with activists and the public at one of the most fascinating places for concrete utopias.

In January 2025, we will return with the ensemble THE PRESENT and make the Eierhäuschen sing with the humorous musical theatre TV show persiflage “Der Preis ist Ei”. We are currently planning an exclusive egg menu for all visitors together with the catering company “Ei-12437-B”.

But first, the Egg House will open on the weekend of 22 March – 24 March 2024!

To this end, NKO and Spreepark Artspace have asked composer and bassist Franziska Aller to prepare a concert based on the music theatre production by Neuköllner Oper and STEGREIF.orchester NEUE LIEDER VON DER ERDE from 2022.

Back then, Franziska Aller set poems by poet Sabine Scho to music, who was commissioned by the Neuköllner Oper through a contact at Spreepark Artspace.

On this opening weekend, some of the works will be premiered at the Neuköllner Oper, including Franziska’s song to Sabine Scho’s text “Of New Beauty”, as well as a song by Sebastian Lange, which was arranged by Franziska Aller. We will also hear the world première of further settings by Sabine Scho, some originally written for the Neukölln Opera, others written especially for the opening.

Following the matinee, Bernhard Glocksin, Artistic Director of Neuköllner Oper, and Änne-Marthe Kühn, Dramaturgy Neuköllner Oper, will talk to Katja Assmann and Franziska Aller about artistic collaborations, past projects and future plans.

Continue reading ""Love Park" - Neukölln Opera and Spreepark Artspace celebrate their collaboration"

Die Initiative Critical Classics hat eine neue, diskriminierungssensible Textedition von Mozarts Klassiker veröffentlicht, die hier zum Download verfügbar ist.

Continue reading "„Die Zauberflöte“ without discriminating language"

Rainer Simon will take over as Artistic Director of the Neuköllner Oper from August 2025. Bernhard Glocksin, who has artistically shaped the theatre for the last 20 years, is leaving the NKO for reasons of age and will be taking on other freelance work. Rainer Simon is Artistic Director of the Schall&Rausch festival and Director of the Komische Oper Berlin’s external venues. From 2012 to 2022, he was a consultant to the artistic director of Komische Oper Berlin, Barrie Kosky.

Jürgen Maier, Chairman of the Board of the Trägerverein: “Under Bernhard Glocksin’s two decades of artistic direction, the Neukölln Opera has developed into an internationally and regionally sought-after premiere and production house for contemporary music theatre. We look forward to continuing on this path with new impetus from Rainer Simon.”

Rainer Simon: “Neukölln and opera: for me, there are no better ingredients for programming exciting musical theatre. In Neukölln, the discourse for socially relevant music theatre is practically on the street. And hardly any other genre offers such a variety of forms and at the same time so many areas of friction as opera.I’m really looking forward to bringing this together in a wonderful theatre with a wonderful team!”

The co-directors of the Komische Oper Berlin, Susanne Moser and Philip Bröking: “After 13 years at the Komische Oper Berlin, this is a great and logical career move. We congratulate and thank our esteemed colleague! He manages the Komische Oper Berlin’s external venues with great commitment and is a key figure in the programme of our festival for brand-new music theatre “Schall&Rausch”, after which he accompanied Barrie Kosky’s artistic directorship with equal dedication as a consultant at his side. We will miss him in our team, but we are also looking forward to working with him in his new role.”

More than 60 people and teams applied for the position in response to the call for applications. Following a two-stage process, the selection committee (consisting of members of the Board of the Trägerverein, the Directorate and the two external experts Cordula Däuper, director, and the long-standing opera manager and director Berthold Schneider) proposed Rainer Simon as the new Artistic Director. The Board of Directors followed this vote unanimously.

Press release of March 5th, 2024

Continue reading "New Artistic Director"

With our in-house app OPERA ACCESS, we offer multilingual subtitles for selected productions. It’s as simple as that: Simply connect to the Wi-Fi in the studio/hall and go to the OPERA ACCESS page via your smartphone’s web browser – done! You will find the access information on the notice board in our stairwell, where you can also borrow clamps for your smartphone from our colleagues.

We currently offer subtitles for these productions:

• ZUSAMMEN FALLEN (English/German, all shows)

• LISAS LAND DES LÄCHELNS (English/German, for the premiere and all shows on Saturdays and Sundays)

• HAYDAR TANZT (Turkish/English/German, all shows)
  

Continue reading "SUBTITLES ON YOUR SMART PHONE"

Elisabeth Pape and Abigél Varga, Marie Kilg and Eva Kuhn: two young text-music tandems are shaping the programme in the hall in the first third of 2024 with their world premieres. We are thus following our tradition of promoting talent through practice, practice, practice. The multi-talented Moritz Eggert – much sought-after composer (also for the NKO), Professor of Composition at the Munich Academy of Music, President of the German Composers’ Association – writes about this:

You can’t learn how to compose operas from books. You have to know the smell of sweat on the rehearsal stage, you have to develop a feel for the stage situation, for timing, for theatricality, for distinguishing the important from the unimportant. You can’t get caught up in academic musical antics, you have to keep your eye on the big picture. But even then, details are important: How do singers think? How can I tell with music what the text can’t tell? How do I communicate my ideas with a team, with dramaturges and directors? Can I also engage with the ideas of others? Opera has always been teamwork from the very beginning, and teamwork has to be learnt. All the great female opera composers of the past have gained theatre experience in one way or another, had to learn to deal with failure and failure (just think of Richard Wagner), but were then also able to reap the rich rewards of their experience. All this can only be learnt in practice. It is therefore impossible to emphasise often enough how important the work of the Neukölln Opera is. Here we have a venue that is decidedly and resolutely committed to young talent, without blinkers, without stylistic dogmas and without arrogance. Where else do young opera composers not only get the opportunity to perform their first works, but also receive intensive coaching and support? The Neuköllner Oper ensures that opera has a future.

I am extremely grateful that many of our young students have been able to contribute to this future and I hope that this will also be possible in the future. With this in mind: good luck for a great new season!

This text appeared in the January/February/March 2024 programme booklet.

Continue reading "FUTURE: OPERA"

Due to multiple illnesses in the ensemble during rehearsals, we unfortunately have to postpone the world premiere of Lisa’s Land des Lächelns.
The new premiere date is 25 January 2024.

Tickets purchased online for the cancelled performances on 19/21 and 24 January will be automatically refunded; if you have any questions, please contact our box office: tickets@neukoellneroper.de.

Thank you for your understanding and happy holidays
The Neukölln Oper team

Continue reading "Premiere of Lisas Land DES LÄCHELNS POSTPONED TO 25.1.24"

Berlin: cosmopolitan city of science, museums and the arts! In the heart of the city, around Museum Island, we will once again embark on a journey of discovery with experts from science, philosophy and music to find answers to an essential question: Which thought patterns can offer us support and orientation today? And what role can music play in this?

The WUNDERKAMMER TRILOGY starts at the Neues Museum with a captivating exploration of ancient Egyptian culture. Their fundamental ideas about God, the world and man are the starting point of our research and reflect phenomena of our time in which bonds and responsibilities seem to be eroding – be it towards nature, social interaction or the belief in a transcendent realm of existence. The second stage is dedicated to the role of ethics in the light of current findings in the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences.

And finally, in the third stage, we “sail” on Berlin’s primeval river Spree to the “Island of Utopia” in search of new concepts for the future.

Stage 1: Neues Museum, 22/23 March 2024

Stage 2: Humboldt Laboratory, 26/27 June 2024

Stage 3: Boat trip, 21/22 September 2024

Continue reading "WUNDERKAMMER-TRILOGY In 2024 "IM PRINZIP HOFFNUNG""

Due to illness in the ensemble, the world premiere of ZUSAMMEN FALLEN unfortunately cannot take place as planned on 7 December and all performances in December will have to be cancelled. The new date for the world premiere of the ritual opera is 6 January 2024.

Tickets purchased online for the cancelled performances will be automatically refunded, if you have any questions please contact our box office: tickets@neukoellneroper.de.

Thank you for your understanding!

Continue reading "PREMIERE ZUSAMMEN FALLEN POSTPONED TO 6.1.2024"

“This question has been on my mind for a long time. As a person, but also as a physician and health or neuroscientist. What is missing in today’s medicine, in our society, to generate sustainable health and healing? My preliminary findings (for discussion!), supported by current international data: Awareness of a new, fourth dimension of health is missing: meaningfulness. For example, when I track down unexplained, sometimes chronic symptoms with my patients, I now often find “new” causes – from a lack of meaning to a lack of purpose in life. But here lies an enormous potential for healing: if there is meaning in what we do and a connection between being and life, if we know what we get up for in the morning (and why here in particular), healing can take place. When we commit ourselves to life, surrender to it.” – Tobias Esch*

This season, the NKO is searching for clues to these themes: In DER TEUFEL IM LIFT, four hotel guests search for meaning and confidence, woven into the timeless music of J.S. Bach. WUNDERKAMMER XI examines the nature of devotion & commitment, and in EIGENTLICH BIN ICH GLÜCKLICH the Junge NKO presents its theater evening based on research on the topic of happiness. The revival of BIS KEINER WEINT circles around the questions of one’s own identity, while in the ritual opera ZUSAMMEN FALLEN three goddesses of fate await you…

Here’s to eventful and insightful encounters in your Neukölln Opera!

*The neuroscientist, health researcher, physician and author Tobias Esch is connected to the activities of the Neukölln Opera through the Wunderkammer series. He is Institute Director and Professor for Integrative Health Care and Health Promotion at the University of Witten/Herdecke.

Continue reading "What makes me get up in the morning?"