MELENCOLIA

MaerzMusik 2025

MELENCOLIA – Musiker*innen des Ensemble Modern auf der Bühne. Im Hintergrund eine Videoprojektion, die stark vergrößert einen Flöte spielenden Musiker zeigt.

MaerzMusik 2025 opens with “MELENCOLIA”, an experimental music theatre show by Brigitta Muntendorf and Moritz Lobeck. In immersive soundscapes, musicians from Ensemble Modern and the Apollo Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden invite the audience to explore the creative and transformative power of melancholic worlds.

Taking Albrecht Dürer’s engraving “Melencolia I” as its starting point, numerous figures and themes are presented on the stage of “MELENCOLIA” and set in relation to one another: Muntendorf/Lobeck go in search of the liberating melancholic mood in a series of seven tableaux, encountering football stadiums and digital cemeteries of virtual “Second Life” worlds, Austrian folk songs, virtuoso instrumental music and Japanese karaoke, AI voice clones and digital guests including the Iranian ney-anbān virtuoso Saeid Shanbehzadeh.

Tailored for 14 musicians of the Ensemble Modern and accompanied by singers from the Apollo Choir, this work addresses the historical complexities of melancholy – perceived variously as an illness, as a way of overcoming earthly suffering or as the sister of genius. The puzzling polyhedron in Albrecht Dürer’s engraving has become a symbol for these contradictions amid the human desire for salvation.

“MELENCOLIA” combines classical performance with cutting-edge approaches at the intersection of art and technology. Set in a post-digital environment, this work of music theatre weaves together a fascinating tapestry of sound and visuals, a hybrid space between showroom and green-screen studio, between real and virtual worlds. “MELENCOLIA” transcends the superficially spectacular to prompt introspection among the audience and, beyond this, to challenge the indifference of the universe. 

The work has already been recognised for its innovation by becoming the first music theatre to receive an Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica. Following a guest performance at the HOLLAND Festival, “MELENCOLIA” will celebrate its German premiere at MaerzMusik 2025 in cooperation with Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

Cast

Brigitta Muntendorf – Composition, Artistic Direction, Staging, Dramaturgy

Moritz Lobeck – Staging, Dramaturgy

Veronika Simmering – Visual Worlds

Sita Messer – Stage, Costume

Begoña Garcia Navas – Lighting Design

Matthias Rieker – Light

Floris Dijkers – Lighting Operator

David Bräuer – Technical Direction

Warped Type, (Andreas Huck, Roland Nebe) – Live Video

Felix Dreher – Sound Direction

Lukas Nowok – Audio Programming, Live Electronics

Banu Sahin – 3D Audio

Volker Bernhard – Sound Engineering

Saeid Shanbehzadeh – ney-anbān (Virtual Soloist)

Members of the Apollo Choir of Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Ensemble Modern

Dietmar Wiesner – flute, piccolo flute, bass flute

Christian Hommel – oboe

Jaan Bossier – clarinet

Thomas Mittler – horn

Sava Stoianov – trumpet

Uwe Dierksen – trombone

Ueli Wiget – piano, sampler

David Haller – percussion

Rainer Römer – percussion

Jagdish Mistry – violin

Giorgos Panagiotidis – violin

Megumi Kasakawa – viola

Eva Böcker – cello

Paul Cannon – double bass, electric bass

With texts by Robert Burton, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Philippe Toussaint and others

In cooperation with Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Commissioned by Bregenzer Festspiele and Ensemble Modern

Next date:

• Date Friday, 21/March/2025 20:00 (1 more date)
• Venue Haus der Berliner Festspiele - Große Bühne
• Address Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin-Wilmersdorf