Staatstheater - Ein Musiktheatrales Kontinuum nach Mauricio Kagel

In the organizer's words:

Mauricio Kagel's "Staatstheater" radically questioned the institution of opera in 1971 by deconstructing theatrical and musical elements and thus revealing the inner structures of the medium of opera. consord and director Gineke Pranger explore which eco-musical utopias and survival strategies can be derived from the work today. "Staatstheater" is an absurd, exuberant work and a call for self-liberation to an institution that seemed to be suffocating in its own hierarchies and traditions. Today, more than four decades after its premiere, opera as an institution and art form is under pressure; it must prove its social relevance in the face of multiple ecological and social crises.

Together with director Gineke Pranger, Consord poses the question of which possible futures, which utopias of opera can be imagined today on the basis of Kagels' Staatstheater. With this new production, the team explores strategies of coexistence and survival that draw on the transformative and regenerative power of performance and improvisation. The result is a musical ecosystem that recognizes all human and non-human actors in their fragility and interdependence. Where Kagel's work still represents the individual performer and a self-contained theater world, the musicians of consord enter into a living network of things, bodies and sounds and explore what it means to be present in the crisis, to stay tuned and to establish a new way of dealing with what is already there. ---consord, the Münster-based ensemble for new music, is a lively, creative ensemble of diversely socialized artistic personalities that exploits the diverse resources of individuals and has made a name for itself both regionally and nationally with its chamber music playing in large ensembles, interactive music and border crossings between jazz rock, performance and new music. As a director, Gineke Pranger stages new music theater works and installations. Her works combine transdisciplinary and multimedia approaches with a strong musical language. She studied early music at the Berlin University of the Arts and directing for drama and opera at the Theaterakademie August Everding. In 2021 she was resident director at Theater Pfütze in Nuremberg. She recently worked with the Stegreif Orchester and the Ensemble Neue Kammer.