On October 15, 2014, the Zafraan Ensemble will take part in an event organized by the Academy of Music Theater Today at the Frankfurt Opera and will present the first results of the collaboration with current scholarship holders.
As the final chord and at the same time the start of a new academy year, the audience can expect an evening under the motto “Icing-Trauma-Remembrance” at this year’s ceremony on Wednesday, October 15th at 7:30 p.m. in the wooden foyer of the Frankfurt Opera. The outgoing scholarship holders (2012-2014) of the Academy of Music Theater Today, initiated by the Deutsche Bank Foundation, show sketches for “Tonguecat”, inspired by Peter Verhelst’s novel of the same name. At the same time, the new scholarship holders (2014-2016) will be formally accepted into the academy.
The Academy of Music Theater Today, together with the production team, the Zafraan Ensemble from Berlin, the mezzo-soprano Ricarda Gross and the performer Liz Waterhouse, invites you to the wooden foyer of the Frankfurt Opera for a sensual experience. Based on the novel by the Flemish author, who was born in 1962, the young musical theater artists have developed a concept that not only appeals to the ears and eyes of the audience, but also makes the content physically tangible. The evening will be enriched by a scientific contribution. Heinrich Graf von Reventlow, qualified psychologist and head of counseling and therapy for refugees at the Protestant Center for Counseling and Therapy at Weissen Stein in Frankfurt, was able to speak about the topic of “traumatization” as a speaker.
The focus in this interpretation of “Tonguecat” is on the titular character, a girl named Ulrike – nicknamed Tonguecat. Various stages of her life are followed: the murder of her parents and the annihilation of her homeland by the barbaric titan lapetos and his men; their revenge killing on lapetos and even selling themselves out. The people in the story live in an ice age. They are paralyzed and frozen inside, unable to feel or remember emotions. In addition to the very intimate, private aspect of the character Ulrike, the seemingly insurmountable cycle of traumatization and shifting of perpetrator-victim relationships is discussed. It is a very current parable about major world events such as the Gaza conflict, where the boundaries between perpetrators and victims have long been blurred and both parties are plunging themselves deeper and deeper into the abyss because they cannot (or do not want to) break out. “Tonguecat” also deals with the effects of wars, which also influence subsequent generations through memories or destroyed family relationships.
The Academy of Music Theater Today of the Deutsche Bank Foundation awards 15 scholarships annually to young musical theater professionals in the fields of stage design, conducting, dramaturgy, composition, cultural management and directing. The highlight of the two-year academy program is the joint development of the final project, which will be presented at the ceremony. The Frankfurt Opera is a long-standing cooperation partner for the ceremony. In addition, the Deutsche Bank Foundation has been awarding composition commissions for new music theater to young artists since 2008. Since its founding in 2001, the Academy of Music Theater Today has developed into one of the most important institutions for young opera talent.
Further information about the academy and its program can be found here .
