Peter Jakober / Ferdinand Schmatz
Populus

Music Theater / Opera / Premiere

Dates
11.–14.10.2020

Details
11.10., 12.10., 14.10., 19:30

Location
MUMUTH Haus für Musik und Musiktheater der Kunstuniversität Graz (KUG)
Graz

Part of
musikprotokoll 2020

Production specifics
Music drama by Peter Jakober based on a libretto by Ferdinand Schmatz
Musical direction: Dimitrios Polisoidis (PPCM)
Musical production: PPCM teaching staff from Klangforum Wien
Director: Christoph Zauner
Costumes and scenery: Andrea Meschik, students from the Institut für Bühnengestaltung
Video: Chris Ziegler
Soloists: KUG
Instrumentalists: KUG/PPCM

A production of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in cooperation with ORF musikprotokoll

Winner of the 7th Johann-Joseph-Fux-Opernkompositionswettbewerbs des Landes Steiermark

The audience finds itself in the middle of the dystopian circus “Forum Populus,” a dynamic hybrid of circus ring and open forum, with diverse islands on which there is talking, singing, and action. What is spoken is executed, but above all refracted. Here is where the “Is” appears, where they form a “we,” which breaks up again into an “I”—hoping and silent inwardly, screaming outwardly, and demanding changes so as to bring about a transformation, not only of everyday life, in a self-determined way.

The political contents emerge from a compositional restructuring of the world and its discourses that situates living together anew and attempts to express it. The music ranges between sonic alienation by means of multiplication, acousmatic processes, and the overlaying of several seemingly independent and yet interrelated layers of sound and tempo. The work hopes to break up predefined, entrenched ways of communicating as well as acting and give rise to new perspectives.

Retrospective
Retrospective
Retrospective