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Musical installation by Novoflot based on motifs by Claudio Monteverdi

What if …? The mother of all questions has been subverting the arts since time immemorial. Nothing seems more alluring than to speculate about what the world in which we live would look like if history had taken a different turn. The Berlin opera company Novoflot ventures on a thought experiment in the trilogy THE OPERA #1 – #3: What if not only the three famous stage works Orfeo, Ulisses and Poppea by Monteverdi, supposed inventor of the opera genre, had survived, but 15 other operas on which the Italian composer had worked, but whose scores are lost? How would this music genre have developed then? Would today’s opera look or sound different in this scenario? With the trilogy, Novoflot undertakes to rewrite the beginning of opera history: After all opera stage works that were ever composed were given a „big crunch“ in the first part of the cycle (Opera#1, 2019), Monteverdi’s first ‘lost’ opera will now materialize on the horizon of a recreated generic universe that is OPERA#2 – ON THE ROPES (ABOUT THE END).

 “Novoflot’s ingenious opera is a gentle if simple reminder of how different cultures and epochs can achieve harmony.” (The UK Stage)

Cast: Antonis Anissegos (keyboards), Hayden Chisholm (saxophone, bagpipe, flute, voice), Chris Dahlgren (viola da Gamba, double bass, e-bass, voice), Elisa Fluch (voice), Ichi Go (dance, voice), Rosemary Hardy (voice, actor), Almut Kühne (voice), Kathrin Pechlof (harp), Eric Schaefer (percussion & modular synthesizer), and members of the Danish National Youth Ensemble (DUEN), Sven Holm (director & concept), Vicente Larrañaga (musical director), Malte Ubenauf (dramaturgy & concept), Nina von Mechow (costume design), Alekos Hofstetter (print motives in stage design), Eleonora Pedretti (assistant stage design), Antonis Anissegos (composition & musical design), Ismael Schott (light), Dörte Wolter (company and production manager), Sophie Beck (production manager), Tina Agency (tour manager), k3 berlin (public relations).

A production by Novoflot, Deutsches Nationaltheater & Staatskapelle Weimar and Kunstfest Weimar. Co-production: CPH Opera Festival, Teater Undergrunden (Copenhagen/Denmark) and Greek National Opera.

Sponsored by Senatsverwaltung Kultur und Europa Berlin and Kulturstiftung des Bundes im FONDS DOPPELPASS – Fonds für Kooperation im Theater, and Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center