Prof. Dr. Thomas Schmidt on LinkedIn: Generalintendanz (w/m/d) im Staatstheater Braunschweig (2024)

Finally! Erfurt: Extraordinary dismissal of theater director Montavon(Picture: Former Executive theater director Guy Montavon)MDR reports: "The Erfurt city council decided on the extraordinary dismissal of general director Guy Montavon on Tuesday evening. According to MDR information, the decision was made in a non-public special meeting. Montavon had already been released from his duties as general director of the Erfurt Theater months ago after allegations of abuse of power and financial irregularities became public."https://lnkd.in/eb4VaaJX

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The Swiss soprano Rachel Harnisch: "I don't want to be part of a toxic system anymore"Rachel Harnisch has given her farewell concert and retired from the opera business. She doesn't want to be part of a toxic system anymore. The Swiss radio station SRF made a contribution to this.Rachel Harnisch says: "I don't want to be part of this broken system (the opera business) anymore .... The singer is degraded to a mindless yes-man.The singer is at the bottom of the food chain, she becomes a puppet (...) at the mercy of the ignorance of artistic directors who neglect art. (...)Sexual assault and pressure are common, there are permanent sexist comments of male directors, invitations to dinners that are obviously about sex (...)."Deep abysses instead of high notes: Rachel Harnisch leaves the opera"It was the most beautiful and at the same time the most grueling thing she has ever experienced: the opera. The Swiss soprano Rachel Harnisch has turned her back on the world of opera - and now wants to get to know the "person behind the beast"."As a singer, you are a cog in a large machine," she says. And she soon realized that the pressure in an opera production is not always compatible with the artistic demands.After 25 years of great success, but also grueling struggle for art, she has now had enough. Instead of shining on the stages of Berlin, Paris, Munich or the Zurich Opera House, Rachel Harnisch is now immersing herself in a psychology degree.She wants to get to know the "person behind the beast," she says. Opera, with all its dark sides, leads in a similar direction: to understand people better. But perhaps only for us as viewers and not for someone who has seen the business from the inside too closely." (SRF - Swiss Radio)https://lnkd.in/ee5QVJn7

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Salzburg: BEAT FURRER - BEGEHREN (Desire)Sarah Aristidou (She), Christoph Brunner (He), Cantando Adamont."Shadow" is the first word in Beat Furrer's music theater Begehren based on texts by Cesare Pavese, Günter Eich, Ovid and Virgil. And the sounds emerge from the shadows: individual lines rise, they murmur, whisper, flicker. Two people strive from the underworld towards the light of day. His look back at her is the turning point in two senses: the tragic moment is frozen, suffered again and again. But that is only the beginning of a relationship drama that revolves obsessively around remembering and searching. With Begehren, a reinterpretation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Beat Furrer created one of his most haunting music theater works."Christoph Irrgeher (Standard/Wien): "The two main characters - referred to only as He and She and always several meters apart - suffer on the one hand emotional outbursts that are reminiscent of Orpheus' visit to Hades. On the other hand, they also tell of lonely hearts on earth and their attempts to get closer. These, too, are of course doomed to failure. A key sentence in this text collage, which draws on ancient models and modern sources (Hermann Broch, Cesare Pavese and Günter Eich): 'Your loneliness doubles mine.' An oppressive antithesis to the title of a popular French feel-good book: together you are not less alone, but rather more alone in Furrer's opera."

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What a brilliant coup. The American choreographer Richard Siegal will be the new ballet director in Nuremberg and will start his work there in the 2025/26 season. This will make the Franconian city an important place on the European ballet map. What a wonderful and smart decision.The Spanish choreographer Goyo Montero previously held this position for 17 years and is now moving on of his own accord. Montero has done a great job.The picture shows a scene of Richard Siegal's 2023 work at the Schauspiel Köln "The body without organs" with his company "The Ballett of difference".The term "Body without Organs" was first used by French writerAntonin Artaudin his 1947 play"To Have Done With the Judgment of God", later adapted by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze in his book"The Logic of Sense", and ambiguously expanded upon by himself and Guattari in both volumes of their work"Capitalism and Schizophrenia"."A »body without organs« is what the theater avant-gardist Antonin Artaud called for at the beginning of the 20th century, evoking forces that are meant to break aesthetic conventions and social norms. But is an avant-garde conceivable without the background of the tradition it abandons? Based on these considerations, Richard Siegal develops an almost dialectical choreography for Ballet of Difference in which strictly composed forms and their dissolution interpenetrate. For this, the US choreographer draws inspiration from a work he created in 2016 for the Sao Paulo Dance Company in Brazil: six pieces by the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, which formed the musical basis of the choreography at the time, are now expanded by new electro-acoustic compositions by Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch. The latter decomposes and overwrites the formal strictness of Rameau and, in combination with Richard Siegal’s choreography, unleashes the unconscious potentials of the Baroque. The perfect starting point, then, for an evening of dance that opens up completely new perspectives on Richard Siegal’s company: Between matter and form, between ballet codes and their deconstruction, BoDy (without) Organs shows the Ballet of Difference from its delicate and fragile side."(source: https://lnkd.in/dHVuBRZb)

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Salzburger Festspiele: Stefan Zweig "Sternstunden der Menschheit"The great stage magician and director Thom Luz brings Stefan Zweig's "Sternstunden der Menschheit" to the stage. Even if the critics are a little critical - that is their job after all - the attempt to dramatize Zweig's texts and breathe life into them on stage is a brilliant undertaking. Ten times more interesting than the inevitable "Jedermann", Salzburg's great theatrical highlight. The special thing about Stefan Zweig's "Sternstunden" this evening is the brilliant band that accompanies the action on stage and plays Brazilian music. In this way, the music becomes another narrator.

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Impressive statistics: 18.5 million spectators in German theaters in 2023, sorted by genre - the majority of whom will attend drama and children's and youth theater, together with an annual audience of almost 9.7 million (52%).It looks like a decent recovery. But what we cannot see are the losses compared to the pre-Corona years, which peaked at up to 19.7 million spectators. What is missing are indeed the concerts.

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Rest in Peace: The outstanding composer Wolfgang Rihm died on the night of July 27th at the age of 72."Making art always means making yourself vulnerable. To be unassailable, you either have to become a critic or a bank director. But you must not become an artist." (Wolfgang Rihm 2022)"Wolfgang Rihm was one of the most important composers of his generation. Born in Karlsruhe in 1952, he began composing while still at school. The performance of his orchestral piece "Sektor IV aus Morphonie" at the Donaueschinger Musiktage in 1974 made him internationally famous. He died on the night of July 27th at the age of 72, as his family confirmed."(Lydia Jeschke, SWR Klassik)https://lnkd.in/eb-F5rYm

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ImpulsTanz-Festival ViennaDada Masilo’s HAMLET / The Dance Factory (ZA)Burgtheater Vienna July 23-27, 2024"HerHAMLETis a theatre performance with dance, singing, a violin and percussion. She radically trimmed the amount of words, thereby conjuring up a contemporary, universally comprehensible piece from the weighty classic.Here comesHAMLET! Following worldwide successes with reinterpretations ofRomeo and Juliet,Carmen,Swan Lake,Giselleand, most recently celebrated at Volkstheater,THE SACRIFICE, Dada Masilo presents her highly individual version of the wordiest of Shakespeare’s dramas on the world’s wide stage: at ImPulsTanz, it’s the stage of Burgtheater, to be precise. “Hamlet is a gloomy piece”, the South African star choreographer says, but “with a dash of black humour”. The main themes are the deceptive appearances of what is being said – and done – as well as evil intrigue: for example, Prince Hamlet’s betrayal of Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or Polonius, and Uncle Claudius’ betrayal of King Hamlet. Masilo assigns herself the role of Ophelia, and she lets some of the female roles be played by men and male figures by women."

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Bayreuth: You can do better!"... to ensure that the Wagner Festival becomes avant-garde again as it was in the time of its creator and not the Ragnarok of Wagner's continued bastardization."Why Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth is dissatisfiedReinhard J. Brembeck Süddeutsche Zeitung:"'Tannhäuser' remains 'Tannhäuser', no matter who conducts and sings. There are only gradations in quality, for which the audience is prepared to pay more or less money." You don't have to put on "Hansel and Gretel" straight away, but "it would be conceivable to have an annual premiere in the Festspielhaus, which would meet Wagner's desire for the new and avant-garde. Especially since all opera-making after Wagner has reacted to him to this day, whether by continuing or rejecting him, this applies to Puccini and Stockhausen, Debussy and George Benjamin, Henze and Rihm. But such an expansion would cost money, much more than Bayreuth currently has at its disposal, much more than it earns even with sold-out performances. At this point, the federal government, the reluctant Bavarians and the friends of Bayreuth are called upon to ensure that the Wagner Festival becomes avant-garde again as it was in the time of its creator and not the Ragnarok of Wagner's continued bastardization." (Brembeck, SZ July 25, 2024; Foto credits: Daniel Karman)https://lnkd.in/eUcT4ziP

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