Passion :SPIEL

With the festival “Passion :SPIEL”, the Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT) explores innovative and experimental approaches which promise to broaden the music theatre repertoire of the deeply traditional theatre. Following the first edition in March 2022, Passion :SPIEL enters its second round in spring 2023. It will be staged at the e-werk, one of the DNT’s auxiliary venues which is especially popular with the younger crowd. The programme will present some of the most recent contemporary music theatre works which audiences do not normally get to see at traditional opera houses. The scope ranges from New Music to experimental adaptations of canonical works to pop and electro. In preparation for the festival, the DNT ensemble will team up with independent and young artists and experiment with new approaches to work, performance and perception. Traditional performance practices will be augmented by plays in public space, walking theatre performances, and immersive and interactive elements which blur the boundaries between opera and music theatre. Most of the works presented at the festival were written by living, contemporary composers. The festival’s thematic thread will centre on legends. Passion :SPIEL asks what legends still exist today and what role they play in our radically changing times. Both main productions taken from the DNT repertoire draw on the legends of antiquity: In “Lezioni di Tenebra” by Lucia Ronchetti and “Abstract Pieces” by Manos Tsangaris, the legends of Medea and Opheus, respectively, will be newly adapted and reinterpreted.

The festival is being produced in cooperation with the Musiktheatertagen Wien (Vienna Music Theatre Festival). In the Workshop :SPIEL programme, organised in cooperation with the College of Music FRANZ LISZT in Weimar, students will have the opportunity to create their own music theatre works under the supervision of experienced professionals.
 

Artistic directors: Michael Höppner, Andrea Moses
Composers: Manos Tsangaris, Thomas C. Desi, Lucia Ronchetti, Cornelius Cardew and others
Stage directors: Andrea Moses, Thomas C. Desi, Michael Höppner, Georg Schütky and others
Stage design: Aurel Lenfert
Vocalists: Romana Amerling, Ingrid Haselberger, Bibiana Nwobilo, Paul Schweinester, Sébastian Soulès, Opera Lab Berlin, soloists of the DNT Weimar music theatre ensemble, DNT Weimar opera choir, Staatskapelle Weimar and others

Festival: e-werk weimar, Weimar: 27 Apr. – 6 May 2023