Neue musikalische Erfahrungen durch neue Technologien oder Was ist eigentlich Oper? – Eine Suche –

Abstract

Starting from the seemingly simple question ‘What actually is opera?’, this article unfolds an artistic-theoretical search that understands opera not as a historically fixed institution, but as an open practice. At its centre is singing as a defining yet unsettling element of musical theatre: as a radically artificial, physical and social act on the theatre stage. Drawing on his own work, the text reflects on the productive use of electroacoustic amplification, sampling and live electronics as compositional parameters that frame and recontextualise classical singing traditions. Opera is discussed both as an immersive sound event and as a political and social space of experience whose institutional conditions are increasingly being called into question. The search leads out of the opera house into the public and digital space, where voice, technology and movement create new forms of liveness, ritual and participation. Opera thus appears as an in-the-world experience, i.e. as an encounter between people through sound, which unfolds its contemporary relevance precisely in the interplay of body, technology and space.