Brigitta Muntendorf: MELENCOLIA (Official Trailer)

MELENCOLIA A show against the indifference of the universe for 14 musicians, six singers, electronics, 3D-Sound For many centuries, melancholy was interpreted in various and often contradictory ways. It has been regarded as a physical illness as well as a moment of contemplation, as a possibility of overcoming earthly suffering, and as a sister of ingenuity.

The puzzling polyhedron in Albrecht Dürer’s famous copperplate engraving Melencolia I has become a symbol for the unsolvable amidst the human desire for salvation and the rational demystification of the world. In MELENCOLIA by Muntendorf/Lobeck, Dürer’s polyhedron is found in a melancholic playground, in a place that seems lost to our hyper-stimulated fatigue societies and the new, colonized digital lifeworlds.

In a liberated and playful yet strict way, the music theatre deals with stereotypes from the Renaissance, Romanticism, pop and kitsch, searching for the liberating melancholic mood. 14 instrumental soloists of the Ensemble Modern encounter virtual guests such as the Iranian Ney-Anban virtuoso Saeid Shanbehzadeh or their own digital twins in 3D audio landscapes. Artificial intelligences and synthetically cloned voices encounter digital visual worlds and bizarre parallel existences, an incessant stream of instrumental and electronic music leads the audience into familiar as well as surreal audio spaces.In the midst of our rationally demystified world, MELENCOLIA celebrates a musical show against the indifference of the universe.

CREDITS
Artistic Direction / Composition: Brigitta Muntendorf
Artistic Direction / dramaturgy: Moritz Lobeck
Visual worlds: Veronika Simmering
stage / costume: Sita Messer
live video / effects: Warped Type
light design: Begoña Garcia Navas
programming: Maximiliano Estudies
sound direction: Norbert Ommer
3D Audio: d&b audio (Banu Sahin, Ralf Zuleeg)
ensemble: Ensemble Modern
special Guest: Saeid Shanbehzadeh
Choir: Karin Rafolt, Nicola Bäurer, Anita Dressing-Malang, Lilli Löbl, Tatjana Kleber-Simic, Eva-Maria Haußmann
extras: Ute Farin, Alexandra Gol, Gloria Pfennig

The feature-length documentary WHY WE PLAY about the Ensemble Modern will be released soon.
A production of Bregenzer Festspiele in cooperation with Ensemble Modern, ECHO FACTORY and d&b audio. With the support of The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media