‘NOperas!’ is entering its seventh round: an expert jury selected ‘Die Kantine’, a project by composer, director and filmmaker Nico Sauer, from 40 applications. The musical theatre will be produced in the 2025/26 season at Staatstheater Darmstadt and for the first time at Theater Münster. The project is being funded by the Fonds Experimentelles Musiktheater (feXm) and the participating theatres with 150,000 euros.
‘Die Kantine’ questions the production of music theatre in the organised opera business. The project is site-specific to the two cities and is aimed at the audience as well as the artistic and non-artistic staff of the theatres. The audience experiences a journey through different areas of the theatre apparatus and behind the scenes of the stage in a variety of ways. Whether musicians act as wardrobe staff or technicians become protagonists and administrative staff switch to the set design department: Functional action sequences are translated into music and the house and its processes are musicalised.
The jury, consisting of proven experts in the field of contemporary music theatre as well as representatives of the participating theatres and the responsible body, included Dr Christian Esch (NRW KULTURsekretariat/Chair), Dr Katharina Kost-Tolmein (Theater Münster), Anna Melcher (Deutsche Oper am Rhein), Frederike Prick-Hoffmann (Staatstheater Darmstadt) and Dr Rainer Simon (Neuköllner Oper, Festival Schall&Rausch).
