Many people have asked Brigitta Muterndorf what her Pocket Opera is about and by now she dreads having to give them an answer. The reactions are often similar – an embarrassed silence, a well-aimed hand in the hair or even worse, a scratch on the neck, right next to the ear. The mood turns dark.
And then, after a brief pause for rumination, the question arrives – and how does (actually: and how affected does) music sound to such subject matter? With these opening credits and a wall of embarrassment (what exactly does that consist of?) it now gets complicated; the impartiality is gone. Anyway, Munterndorf will give it a try.
Munterndorf hears herself saying that the music seems optimistic and independent to her, perhaps because she began the piece at the moment when her compassion was one of freedom, not the partiality that came the moment when the emptiness and speechlessness created by death was unmasked as a fullness of blatant longings and a psychological poverty evoked by society.
Finally victim
Music theatre for one actor, four singers, children’s choir and video
Commissioned work for the 2013 Pocket Opera Festival
Music Brigitta Muntendorf
Director Thierry Bruehl
Man Michael Günther
Singer Sandra Quell
Singer Livia Rado
Singer Eva Schoßleitner
Singer George McCoy
Conductor Video Vimbay Kaziboni
Salzburg Festival and Theatre Children’s Choir