Melencolia

The puzzling polyhedron in Albrecht Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I has become a symbol for these contradictions in the midst of the human desire for salvation.

Melencolia explores these opposites in music. An opera as hypertext become space, in which sources of sound, light, body, and image establish themselves as elementary particles, which then regroup themselves in a continuous process of transformation. In a playful approach to stereotypes this work goes in search of a liberating melancholic mood.

In 3D audio landscapes, fourteen instrumentalists from Ensemble Modern encounter the virtual guests such as the Iranian ney anban virtuoso Saeid Shanbehzadeh or their own digital twins.

Artificial intelligence and cloned voices encounter digital visual worlds and bizarre parallel existences.

MaerzMusik 2025 opens with the experimental music theater show "MELENCOLIA" by Brigitta Muntendorf and Moritz Lobeck. In immersive soundscapes, musicians from the Ensemble Modern and the Apollo Choir of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden take listeners on an exploration of the creative and transformative power of melancholic worlds.

Based on Albrecht Dürer's engraving "Melencolia I", numerous figures and themes are also related to one another on the stage of "MELENCOLIA": Between football stadiums and digital cemeteries of virtual "Second Life" environments, Austrian folk songs, virtuoso instrumental music and Japanese karaoke, AI voice clones and digital guests such as the Iranian Ney-Anbān virtuoso Saeid Shanbehzadeh, Muntendorf/Lobeck go in search of the liberating melancholic mood in seven tableaux.

The work, tailored to 14 musicians from the Ensemble Modern and accompanied by singers from the Apollo Choir, addresses the historical complexity of melancholy, which has been perceived as an illness, a means of overcoming earthly suffering, or as the sister of genius, among other things. The enigmatic polyhedron in Albrecht Dürer's engraving has become a symbol of these contradictions in the midst of human longing for redemption.

"MELENCOLIA" combines classical forms of representation with modern means at the interfaces of art and technology. In a post-digital environment, the music theater weaves a fascinating tapestry of sound and image, a hybrid space between showroom and green screen studio, between real and virtual worlds. "MELENCOLIA" goes beyond the superficially spectacular to encourage the audience to reflect on themselves - and to challenge nothing less than the indifference of the universe.

The work was the first music theater to be awarded an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica for its innovative potential. After a guest performance at the HOLLAND Festival, “MELENCOLIA” will celebrate its German premiere at MaerzMusik 2025 in cooperation with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

Cast

With texts by Robert Burton, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Philippe Toussaint and others

In cooperation with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden

A commissioned work by the Bregenz Festival and the Ensemble Modern