TOT

Brigitta Muntendorf, Ensemble Modern (Germany) - Melencolia

An experimental musical theatre piece with stereotypes from the Renaissance, Romanticism, pop and camp as a ‘melancholic playground against the indifference of the universe’. German-Austrian composer Brigitta Muntendorf’s Melencolia is high-tech, drenched in melancholy, yet still light-hearted.

What is melancholy? The answer will be different for everyone. Muntendorf (1982, Hamburg) is one of the most interesting composers of her generation. In Melencolia, performed by fourteen brilliant musicians of Ensemble Modern and a six-person choir, she presents seven tableaus with different answers to this question in an associative manner. The answers are inspired by a wide range of different subjects, from Albrecht Dürer’s mysterious 1514 copperplate engraving Melencolia I to sentimental Japanese karaoke, and the by now deserted virtual cities of Second Life to footballer Zinedine Zidane’s infamous headbutt.

In different ways, reality and virtuality are combined on stage. The scenes come to life in a colourful and island-like setting with live video projections and outrageous costumes, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, voice cloning and 3D sound. Where virtuoso modern-music solos alternate with sentimental Japanese karaoke, among others, the music skilfully navigates between irony, kitsch and cliché.

Paradoxically, the excess of ideas and impressions invites us to think about the demystified world we live in. The piece can be alienating, humorous and erratic, but deeply melancholic in particular.

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