Commissioned by Bühnen und Orchester der Stadt Bielefeld. Supported by the Hanns Bisegger Foundation and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia within the scheme of Fonds Neues Musiktheater 2020-2022.

Download the performance audio files here.
Unavailable for performance.

  • 2(pic,afl).2(ca).2(ebcl,bcl,sx).2(dbl bsn)/4.2.3(bfbn).1/3perc/timp/hp/prepared pf:synth(Juno60 Synth or plugin for computer)/str(8.8.6.6.3)
  • 2(pic,afl).2(ca).2(ebcl,bcl,sx).2(dbl bsn)/4.2.3(bfbn).1/3perc/timp/hp/prepared pf:synth(Juno60 Synth or plugin for computer)/str(6.6.6.5.3)
  • SATB
  • Baritone, Tenor, Soprano
  • 2 hr 25 min

Programme Note

Berlin Alexanderplatz is a work commissioned by the Theater Bielefeld and was planned from the beginning as an interdisciplinary work combining opera, drama and dance.

This was a great challenge and opportunity for us at the same time.

Since we, as a team of composers, always move in the border areas of different musical styles and musical traditions - such as between electronic club music and contemporary chamber and orchestral music - and look for intersections and similarities in apparent opposites, we were able to bring together and gather all our experience from our previous works and projects in theater, dance, music theater and radio drama in this piece.

A central element of our compositional technique is that of mimesis and adaptation, which we use as a tool not to juxtapose different times, genres - even worlds, but to summarize them in our own tonal language. In this way we pay tribute to the Berlin of the 1920s, in which the piece is located, and at the same time transfer the (musical) themes to today's expressive worlds.

The orchestral instruments mimic electronic synthesizers and delay effects, and speech is broken down into its component parts, from opera singing to naturalistic drama texts.

In this way we wanted to depict the noises and sounds in Döblin's language and descriptions - his polyphony of a big city in its most diverse facets.


Cast

FRANZ BIEBERKOPF - Baritone
REINHOLD - Tenor
MIEZE - Soprano
ERZÄHLER - Actor

 

Choir SATB:

 

CHOR DER HÄFTLINGE
DIE STADT SINGT
DIE SOLDATEN
DIE TOTEN

Speaking Choir:

DIE STADT SPRICHT
DIE FRAUEN
PUMPS BANDE
SOLDATEN
DER WALD
DIE BEHAUSUNG
DIE STURMGEWALTIGEN 

Other Singing Roles:

MINNA - Soprano
ALTER MANN - Bass
SCHNEIDERIN 1 - Soprano
SCHNEIDERIN 2 - Soprano
SCHNEIDERIN 3 - Alto
SCHNEIDERIN 4 - Alto
MIEZE DOUBLE 1 - Soprano
MIEZE DOUBLE 2 – Soprano
MIEZE DOUBLE 3 – Mezzo-soprano
SPERLING 1 - Soprano
SPERLING 2 - Alto
SPERLING 3 - Tenor
TOD 1 - Tenor
TOD 2 - Baritone
TOD 3 - Bass

Other Speaking Roles:

WEIB
2 JUDEN
PASSANT 1 - 4
KNEIPENBRUDER 1 - 3
PUMS
WILLI
FRANZ DOUBLE
MIETZE DOUBLE
EIN JUNGE
3 ENGEL
IDA

 

Media

Paper Zurna
Percussion Schneebesen mit Bogen
Strings Overpressure and Distortion
Strings Air Noise
Woodwind Slap technique
Brass slap technique
Brass strong air noise
Percussion Oberton - Triangel von Matthias Kaul

Reviews

… Neudecker's revue-like collage with its cinematic narrative is an advantage for the composer brothers Bhatti. They use all the opportunities of their hybrid, consciously eclectic stylistic pluralism with its oscillation between club sounds and klezmer, avant-garde and pop and the dramaturgically precisely placed transitions from artificial opera sound to melodramatic speech song and naturalistic speech, copied from Alban Berg's "Wozzeck". Sometimes the big-city atmosphere booms in the percussion batteries of the orchestra, which has been expanded to include a synthesiser, sometimes it only rattles muffled in the basses or squeaks shrilly in the flutes, sometimes it sinks completely into murmuring, even soundless noise. But it always has rhythmic drive, works great as theatre music and imposes its own expression on text and plot.

Uwe Schweikert, Opernwelt
November 2022

The conglomerate of references offered by the brothers, ranging from Berg and street songs of the 1920s to Klezmer, club sounds and reducing music to noise, surprisingly finds its way into musical theatre over the course of the evening.

Michael Kaminski, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
October 2022

Intense, sombre sound collages are created that line the individual images and add another dimension to the restlessness and menace of Berlin in the twenties. Just as a lot of space is given to brutality in the novel, here multi-layered, fascinating percussion effects, harsh brass sounds, aggressive woodwinds and strings playing up to the acoustic pain threshold are dominating.

Rainer Gerbaulet, Neue Westfälische
7th September 2022

Actors sing, singers act, the choirs march and dance and declaim, unfamiliar sounds come from the orchestra pit. The dissolution of the usual boundaries has spun such a dense fabric of new impressions in elaborate joint rehearsals that one is completely fascinated in the auditorium, both seeing and hearing.

A variety of sounds and noises, which explicitly seek friction, become simultaneously audible and yet are ordered in a way that the listener is able to separate and classify them again.

The excellently sung chorales and songs, which stand out from the action, are particularly impressive because their esoteric sound asserts itself above the noise of the big city. This sound is part of the overall picture, which is completed by the chorus and the dancers. Both groups perform at an often breathtaking pace. They take turns, react to each other, and intersect each other. … This is an exceptional event that no one should miss!

Armin Kansteiner, Westfalen-Blatt
6th September 2022

The whole thing exceeds the individual.

A great artistic achievement.

Deutschlandfunk Kultur
5th September 2022

… a great tour de force and a great artistic achievement

It sounds very versatile … Here all these different styles are really inserted in such a way that they serve the plot, that they create an atmosphere … This is theatre that you can sit in and be carried away with.

Stefan Keim, WDR 3 Tonart
5th September 2022

... courageously eclectic, the allusions range from today's pop and club music to serious music by Kurt Weill or Alban Berg to Klezmer and choral. Above all, however, this music is dramaturgically self-supporting because it engages with the form and meaning offered by Neudecker's text with its own interpretative attitude by charging the text melodramatically, extracting from it its own musical dimensions of time and expression and occasionally also cheekily parodying it.

… the city's speaking choir does an amazing job in its multi-layered chanting, whispering, singing, declaiming. And the choir and especially the orchestra … unfold a fascinating sound and noise continuum …

Detlef Brandenburg, Die deutsche Bühne
5th September 2022

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