DIE OPER #3 — DIE OUTTAKES

In a final, the best athletes, scientists or artists compete against each other. At least that’s how it should be. But aren’t there often barely measurable nuances that make the difference? Thousandths of a second or extremely subjective taste buds of individual jury members that decide on fame and shame? Of course!

And so it is no wonder that in the finale of the music theater trilogy Die Oper #1 – #3, all attention is focused on the “outtakes” that did not make it to the finals. One can only vaguely guess how much material remains unconsidered when a film is cut, a book is edited or a piece of music is produced, and how much heart and soul goes into such processes. In the end, there is always the agonizing question of whether the right choice has really been made. This is how the pioneer of the opera genre, the composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567 – 1643), must have felt when he was finalizing his stage works. How exactly did it happen that countless arias, choruses, symphonies and recitatives fell by the wayside? And in which sunken archives are these “outtakes” kept? There is interesting news about this, because there is much to suggest that they could resurface more than 350 years after the death of their creator in order to make their very own way onto the stages of this world. It is to begin in Weimar. And in a place where one would not expect to hear opera. There, deep in the west of the city, NOVOFLOT is ready to receive the “outtakes” and to initiate the final rewriting of opera history together with them!