Staatstheater

Of futures lost and found

Ensemble consord

Staatstheater

Of futures lost and found

Ensemble consord

In 1971, Mauricio Kagel's Staatstheater radically questioned the institution of opera by deconstructing theatrical and musical elements and in doing so, exposed the internal structures of the medium of opera. consord and director Gineke Pranger explore the eco-musical utopias and survival strategies that can be derived from this work for today’s society.

Staatstheater, this absurd, outrageous and provocative work, was 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 has to 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 can be evoked today in their interpretation of Kagels' Staatstheater. With this new and innovative production, the team explores strategies of togetherness and survival that arise from the transformative and regenerative power of performing and improvising.
The result is a musical ecosystem that recognises all human and non-human actors in their fragility and interdependence. While Kagel's work solely represents the individual performers within an insular, self-contained theatre world, the musicians of consord enter into a living network of objects, human beings, and sounds and explore what it means to be aware in the crisis, to stay attuned and to establish a new approach to deal with what is already there.

Music Theater | Performance