The NRW KULTURsekretariat’s ‘NOperas!’ programme is entering its eighth round: from 22 applications, a panel of experts selected ‘Drag Spirits: The Poet and the Sun’, a project by Binha Haase and Adrian Laugsch. This hybrid music theatre production combines opera, drag and video art and will be staged during the 2026/27 season at Theater Münster and the Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbrücken. The project is funded by the Fonds Experimentelles Musiktheater (feXm) and the participating venues with a total of 125,000 euros.
At the heart of “Drag Spirits: The Poet and the Sun” are the figures of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus – one of the first historically documented non-binary/trans people – and Virginia Woolf’s poetic fictional character Orlando, who changes their gender and social roles over the centuries. As part of an experimental exploration of the relationships between power, bodies, queer history and self-determination, the project brings the two together for a date in a queer bar. Literary fiction and historical facts span a spectrum from antiquity to the present day. Pop songs and opera arias serve as musical material and are deconstructed, rewritten and placed in new contexts over the course of the evening. The video set design blurs the boundaries between the bar space, music video aesthetics and mythological-imaginary landscapes.
The jury, comprising recognised experts in the field of contemporary music theatre as well as representatives of the participating venues and the organising body, consisted of: Vera Schöpfer (NRW KULTURsekretariat/Chair), Katharina Kost-Tolmein (Theater Münster), Michael Schulz (Staatstheater Saarbrücken), Anna Melcher (dramaturg) and Tomasz Prasqual (composer).
