Olivia Vermeulen

Two particles wander through space. Two particles? Perhaps they are also two musicians: the first and second violins. An absurd scenario. Voices A and B speak to each other, but they can't hear each other ... Without the words Fukushima or nuclear power being mentioned even once, “Kein Licht. (2011/2012/2017)” depicts a ghostly world after the nuclear disaster. The text by Elfriede Jelinek becomes the libretto of a world premiere musical performance at the Ruhrtriennale. Frenchman Philippe Manoury is composing a new musical theater work for actors, singers and a musical ensemble. The special feature: The music itself also becomes an uncontrollable element. Together with director Nicolas Stemann, Manoury is developing a new form in which pre-composed orchestral and electronic score modules are combined with live electronics that intervene in the modulation of the singers and actors - in real time. Music is verbalized and language is musicalized.

Thomas Larcher has adapted Yasushi Inoue’s best-seller The Hunting Gun for his first opera, with a libretto by Austrian Book Prize winner Friederike Gösweiner. Austrian actor and film director Karl Markovics made his debut as stage director for an opera. The story tells of three women, who speak in three letters addressed to the same man, a hunter – his wife, his lover and his lover’s daughter. As the women react to the revelation of illicit love, the hunter’s life is laid bare.