It's not easy, it's not easy, it's not easy!

Description

Since 2021, [in]operabilities has been advancing artistic research on the Aesthetic of Access in musical theater and linking the art form opera with questions of accessibility. In the canon and cosmos of opera, artists with different perception styles seek forms of multi-sensory music-making and encounters. The focus is on artistic work with integrated, partly sung audio description, sign language, and sign language poetry.
The new production by [in]operabilities deals with "Fidelio," the only opera by the later deafened composer Ludwig van Beethoven. While Beethoven was said to have struggled with increasing isolation due to his deafness at that time, the performer team explores the emancipatory and liberating power of music for all senses—and possibly a genuinely deaf aesthetic in Beethoven's work from that period.
After "The Island," this time the personal perspectives of the performers on the desire for freedom, autonomy, and solidarity in times of crisis are at the center. In view of drastic cuts in culture, democracy, social, and inclusion funding, this desire also becomes an existential question. Participants and additional information:
Benjamin van Bebber (direction); Leo Hofmann (composition, freely based on Beethoven's opera "Fidelio"); Athena Lange, Fia Neises, Marie-Sophie Richter (performance); Franziska Henschel (dramaturgy); Susanne Tod, Emil Leske (dramaturgy in German Sign Language); Naomi Sanfo, Jeanne Charlotte Vogt (dramaturgy audio description); Gunda Schröder (Outside Eye & Ear); Ladislav Zajac (light/space); Jessica Gadani (costume); Emil Leske (direction support); Sofia Chionidou (production assistance); Nina Klöckner/honest work (finance); Jeanne Charlotte Vogt (public relations/creative producer); Susanne Tod, Emil Leske, Naomi Sanfo (public relations team) [in]operabilities (concept/production/libretto in German and German Sign Language, inspired by Eva von Redecker, Donna Haraway, and "Fidelio"); Christina Müller, Céline Sawkins, Nicole Ostrycharczyk, Marie Schaper, Clara Bosse, Anna Maria Meyer, Katrin Kukla, Kunigunde Schindler (support during rehearsal process by interpreters for German Sign Language and German)

Highlights

• Engagement with Beethoven's "Fidelio"
• Integrated audio description and sign language
• Thematization of freedom and autonomy

General Information

The production by [in]operabilities examines accessibility in musical theater and combines various perception styles. The focus is on artistic work with audio description and sign language, while the performers present personal perspectives on freedom and solidarity in times of crisis.

Location

Schwarzwaldallee 200, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

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