Stage

Black Cracker talks deconstructing Mozart

18. Okt. 2016

Oct. 18, 2016 – Black Cracker is known first and foremost as a rapper, but he's also a poet and producer, and in the last couple years has branched out into theater as well. Now, following his work with Ballhaus Naunystraße and the Maxim Gorki's Studio Я, director Alexandra Holtsch has invited Black Cracker to help launch her new series at the Deutsche Oper, Aus dem Hinterhalt ("Ambushed from Behind"), which updates classic works for our messy 21st Century.

In this reinterpretation of the 1790 opera Così fan tutte, Black Cracker will integrate video and text in an investigation of love in the age of "Facebook, Grindr, Tinder, Snapchat, Skype". The role of the old philosopher Don Alfonso will be embodied, although not in such a literal way, by both Cracker and his "Muse of the work": Peaches (who is also no stranger to opera, having performed the title role in L'Orfeo at Hebbel am Ufer). "We switch perspectives on the same inner dialog and struggles throughout the material," he explains to SIEGESSÄULE. "For me, Così is so much about insecurity and trust, and in bypassing roles, I was also attempting to bypass gender and the often more sexist critique of the script."

Aside from Mozart's compositions, Cracker teases that this production will also include cuts from his Tide EP and Peaches' latest album Rub (probably making this the first and last time the phrase "Dumb Fuck" will be uttered onstage in the country's second-oldest opera house). "In a way, our practices and intentions are very much the same, but our articulation is truly worlds apart," says Cracker on collaborating with her. "I attempted to use the history of Così fan tutte to be that bridge between the poetic and the obscene." 

The two artists will be joined by several classically trained performers of the operatic discipline, including Thomas Lehman and Matthew Newlin. Several queens from the House of Presents are also billed, such as Shiaz Legz, Hungry and, of course, Pansy herself. 

Tickets are already sold out online, but there will be a very limited number available at the door.

The second edition of Hinterhalt (sans Black Cracker) targets Les Huguenots for November 19, with three more pieces scheduled for 2017. Meanwhile, Peaches will perform a concert of her own on November 24 at Columbiahalle.

Joey Hansom

Aus dem Hinterhalt: Cosí fan tutte
Oct. 22, 21:00, Deutsche Oper


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