Almost every third day in Germany, a woman is killed because of her gender. The perpetrators are always men, most often from the immediate social environment. These murders represent the catastrophic, dehumanizing endpoint of psychological and physical violence against partners and ex-partners, daughters, and mothers within patriarchy. Femicide is carried out under the societal guise of a “crime of passion.” On stages across the country, femicides are additionally presented night after night as a “good murder,” a “beautiful murder,” as it is called in Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck.
The music theatre performance CRIME OF PASSION by Berlin-based performer and singer Anthony Hüseyin investigates the killing of women on the opera stage, its historical roots, and its presence in our everyday lives. Fatma Aydemir, Alvina Chamberland, and Martha-Luise Urbanek also engage with violence against FLINTA+ in their artistic, literary, performative, and journalistic practices – both on a personal and structural level. On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and following Hüseyin’s performance, they will collectively approach the topic of femicide
Free admission – in English
WITH Fatma Aydemir, Alvina Chamberland, Anthony Hüseyin and Martha-Luise Urbanek
Fatma Aydemir is a novelist and columnist for the British daily newspaper The Guardian. Her novels Ellbogen (2017) and Dschinns (2022) have received multiple awards and adaptations. Her play Doktormutter Faust premiered in 2023. She is also co-editor of the literary magazine Delfi.
Alvina Chamberland is a Swedish-US American author of predominantly literary autofiction novels. In 2015 Bokförlaget ETC published her co-authored book Allt som är Mitt: Våldtäkt, Stigmatisering och Upprättelse (English translation: All that is mine: Rape, Stigmatization and Reparation). The book received a grant from the Swedish Arts Council. In September 2018 her novel Utelåst – Uppväxt- nostalgi för freaks (Locked Out – A nostalgic account of growing up for freaks) a parody of the coming of age-genre, was published by Dockhaveri Förlag. She resides between Athens and Berlin and has no real hobbies, only intensity and serenity. Her English language debut novel Love the World or Get Killed Trying (2024), was heralded by Shakespeare and Co. Paris as one of the 121 greatest books of the 21st century.
Anthony Hüseyin is a non-binary musician and performer of Kurdish-Turkish and Arab heritage. Born in Urfa and raised in Istanbul, Anthony studied classical singing and jazz vocals, completing a Master’s degree in jazz singing in the Netherlands. Anthony currently lives in Berlin and creates art that intertwines music, performance, and activism.
The young mezzo-soprano Martha-Luise Urbanek has been engaged at the Volkstheater Rostock since the 2025/26 season, where she will appear among others as Hänsel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel and Isa in Tschick. Previously, she sang and performed at the Mecklenburg State Theatre Schwerin as part of the opera studio, taking on roles such as Valencienne in The Merry Widow and Mercédès in Carmen. In Schwerin, Vienna, and Berlin she was also part of Florentina Holzinger’s opera performance Sancta. Urbanek additionally seeks challenges in interdisciplinary music theatre projects within the independent scene, collaborating with the dance and vocal ensemble CHOREOS, the Berlin music theatre collective glanz&krawall, and the theatre and cultural collective Freigeister Rostock e.V. She is a recipient of the Deutschlandstipendium and the Lions Music Prize. In 2024 she was nominated by the specialist magazine Opernwelt as “Young Singer of the Year.”
