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- Neuköllner Oper
- Saal
Der Mann der sich Beethoven nannte
by Moritz Rinke/Mathias Schönsee (text) and Cymin Samawatie/Ketan Bhatti/Niko Meinhold/Trickster Orchestra (music)
An unheard-of challenge of the western-white-European music history
The end of the Beethoven year 2020: The Berlin Philharmonic Hall is destroyed, the orchestra finds itself covered in dust and wearing breathing masks in front of the devastated building, and in the midst of all this an odd stranger claims to be Beethoven himself. While the star conductor ruthlessly tries to keep all the orchestra’s concert dates and a young musician rebels against this autocrat, the man who calls himself Beethoven pursues the goal of reworking not only his Promethean works with a humanistic mission, but all of humanity as well. After all, how is it possible that an artificial intelligence has finished composing fragments of his compositions and this is sponsored by a large telecommunications company?
A furious and winking reckoning with a society that even after the Enlightenment does not seem to have become one bit wiser. Under attack is a (high) culture that, instead of artistic creation, only focuses on its commodity value and a world that systematically destroys its natural habitat. Thus Beethoven, the maestro and the young woman engage in a verbal battle about what it means to recognize the human being in a human being.
The award-winning author Moritz Rinke, director Mathias Schönsee and the transcultural Trickster Orchestra weave humorous drama with Beethoven’s musical cosmos – and in doing so challenge Western White European music history in an unheard-of way.
Questions are asked such as: Can it be possible to have the fragment of the 10th symphony written by an artificial intelligence?
Credits
Musical Direction: Ketan Bhatti und Cymin Samawatie | Direction: Mathias Schönsee | Dramaturgy: Änne-Marthe Kühn | Scenography: Rebecca Raue
With: Maya Alban-Zapata, Hansa Czypionka, Christian Kerepeszki, Cymin Samawatie and the musicians of Trickster Orchestra Naoko Kikuchi, Sabrina Ma, Niko Meinhold, Ralf Schwarz, Cymin Samawatie, Milian Vogel, Wu Wei
