OPER OTZE AXT (Dritte Degeneration Ost) 2024/25

Season 2024/25

Dritte Degeneration Ost
Oper Otze Axt

Concept & libretto: Dritte Degeneration Ost (Baresel / Beeskow / Bickert / Dins / Frieda & Frithjof Gawenda / Grimm)
Composition: Richard Grimm, Mathias Baresel, Frieda Gawenda
Production: Romy Dins, Frithjof Gawenda
Sound Design & performance: Antonia Alessia Virgina Beeskow
Songwriting & performance: Mathias Baresel
Singing & performance: Frieda Gawenda
Stage: RHO-Collective
Costumes: Chiara Marcassa
Artistic production management: Anne Inken Bickert
Dramatury: Roland Quitt (feXm)

Team. The DRITTE DEGENERATION OST (Third Degeneration East) chose its name as an ironic allusion to the East German network ‘3rd Generation East’. With the exception of Czech composer Richard Grimm, its members come from eastern Germany. For them, German-German unification, which is the subject of their project, involves exploring a time in which they were not yet born. Almost all of them have already worked together in the theatre and are now coming together for the first time for this project in the existing constellation and under the existing name. They are focussing on the idea of developing a collective play on an equal footing.

Project. After more than thirty years of reunification, the dividing lines between East and West are opening up again and quite a few of those who called for freedom back then are now working to abolish it. Inspired by the life of GDR punk musician Dieter ‘Otze’ Ehrlich, the DRITTE DEGENERATION OST collective questions our image of the post-reunification era in its music theatre OPER OTZE AXT. The resistant hero of the play experiences the increasingly disintegrating GDR, but finds no redemption in the social liberation of the fall of the Wall, only more walls. The music challenges the language of the opera with elements of punk and noise music in order to confront the political divisions of our time.

Initial production: Staatstheater Darmstadt (premiere: 14.02.2025)

2nd and 3rd stage of development: Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen (premiere: 13.04.2025), Theater Bremen (premiere: 04.07.2025 – with audio description)

Further dates: 02.03., 09.03. (Staatstheater Darmstadt), 19.04., 26.04. (Musiktheater im Revier), 05.07., 06.07. (Theater Bremen, performance on 06.07. with audio description)

Cast Darmstadt
Mathias Baresel (Otze), Antonia Alessia Virginia Beeskow (IM), Georg Festl (Schläger), Frieda Gawenda (Tier), Clara Kreuzkamp (Magier), Johann Kalvelage (Schatten), Martin Gernhardt (Vater)
Choir (Helene Böhme, Yan Hoffmann Rothe, Philipp Klotz, Mika Magen, Emiliy Norris
Staatsorchester Darmstadt
Extras of Staatstheater Darmstadt
Musical direction: Neil Valenta
Production dramaturgy (Darmstadt): Julia van der Horst
Choir rehearsal: Rodrigo Cob Peña

Cast Gelsenkirchen
Mathias Baresel (Otze), Antonia Alessia Virginia Beeskow (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter (IM)), Timothy Edlin (Schläger), Frieda Gawenda (Tier), Almuth Herbst (Magier), Yevhen Rakhmanin (Schatten), Thomas Brinkmann (Vater)
MiR Extras
MiR Opera ensemble
Neue Philharmonie Westfalen
Musical direction: Askan Geisler
Lighting: Patrick Fuchs
Sound: Jörg Debbert
Dramatury: Miriam Michel

Cast Bremen
Mathias Baresel (Otze), Antonia Alessia Virginia Beeskow (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiterin (IM), Frieda Gawenda (Tier), Elias Gyungseok Han (Schläger), Ulrike Mayer (Magier), Jasin Rammal-Rykała (Schatten), Lüder Kulenkampff (Vater)
Bremer Philharmoniker
Musical direction: Lukas Ziesché
Sound: Mathias Kluge, Tabea Kühnel
Lighting: Joachim Grindel
Dramaturgy: Brigitte Heusinger
Audio description: Felix Koch, Johanna Krins, Anne Inken Bickert