A chamber opera with beats for two singers
by Florian Stanek & Sebastian Brand
Radio feature on Radio Ö1 about the upcoming premiere at the Chemnitz Opera
Casting
1 F / 1 M (Mezzo/Baritone)
Music:
Piano, Double Bass, Violin, DJ
Duration
One hour
Story
The world in lockdown. Hannah is a Youtuber and gives out cheerful slogans of perseverance to her followers. Until Paul interferes. Paul believes in conspiracy theories and is a pandemic sceptic. What unites them? The search for the real thing, for life, for true contact despite social media and social distancing. And where better to find life than in a club? With booming beats, sweaty bodies and alcohol. Hannah and Paul embark on a journey. The boundaries between the analogue and digital worlds become blurred, musically as well. But which isolation is real, which only takes place in the mind? An appeal to true courage in times of great uncertainty.
„One beat. That's all it takes. And that is not synchronisation. This is mantra, this is subsumption of emotion. Not a primitive uz-uz, but the basis, a blank canvas for a trillion possibilities. With this beat, on it, anything can happen.“
Info
PremiereJune 2021, Chemnitz Opera
More information on the page of the Chemnitz Theatre: Link
The production received a grant from the German Literary Fund 2020.
Reviews
"Florian Stanek's dualistic plot (...) is sure to find a place in the theatre chronicles: "Isolation Club" fits perfectly into the line of musical relationship plays such as Telemann's "Pimpinone", Wolf-Ferrari's "Susannen's Secret" or Harvey Schmidt's "I Do! I Do!". From these musical comedies, as we all know, one learns much about the trials of happiness, crises of sympathy and start-up difficulties, as well as the gender fluidity of earlier times."
– Concerti
"The subtitle chamber opera possibly runs the risk of scaring people away. Wrongly, because it is musical theatre without an access barrier for clubbers. The addition of "with beats" is meant seriously, but in turn should not scare off classical opera lovers for whom this might be rather noise. Overall, in fact, the result is an original novelty that is about the isolation of young people."
– NMZ
"Florian Stanek wrote the libretto for the chamber opera ISOLATION CLUB. A piece that could hardly be more topical and whose thematic treatment is certainly always a kind of balancing act, not to slide into one or the other opinion direction. Stanek has not done that in any scene. Rather, he has written a story of two young people that so many other people can relate to. (...) Florian Stanek's play conveys this very special form of isolation of young people, who in "their" time want to be anything but isolated and "curled up", in an immensely comprehensible way for the audience of his play. Stanek has used a language that is close to the attitude to life of the young generation, but hardly distant from that of the older generation.
Sebastian Brandmeir has used various musical styles for his composition for this chamber opera and interwoven them in an interesting and sophisticated way. Classical sounds, aria and duet sequences, but also echoes of operetta and musical combine with rhythmic modern beats to create a musical cocktail that is absolutely appealing. And which has the potential to interest young people in opera, to introduce them to opera. (...) The duet Hanna and Paul "...in a club, in a club anything is possible...."and then on in the best operetta manner, - or rather Musicallike- „Such a place..such a place"....and the many other musical variations from beat to classical music should be mentioned here as an example of composition. Not only because they are instantly catchy!
– Das Opernmagazin
Gallery
(Photos: Nasser Hashemi, Die Theater Chemnitz)
