music theatre for soprano, electronics and video

concept, composition, direction, video: Falk Hübner

voice, performance: Cora Schmeiser

assistence: Nadya van’t Hoff

produced by Theater Zeebelt Den Haag

with kind support of: ArtEZ conservatory Arnhem, OCW Rotterdam

NewsReal is an audio visual chamber opera by Falk Hübner and soprano Cora Schmeiser. In NewsReal, an incessant flow of information tries to finds its way in the life of a soprano.

Internet in our pockets, the newspaper in our bags, tv in the train. News have never been this close to us before. But do we actually manage to process all that information in just one day? And do we finally know more since information became that easily accessible?

A classic chamber opera rapidly changes into a complex interaction between singing, images and – literally – today’s news. Cora Schmeiser sings short stories of news-characters like the young Iranian martyr Mehrdad Azizollahi and the wife of the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo; stories that gradually intertwine and thus turn into an overwhelming torrent of news that goes right through the singer, making her stagger, shimmer, doubt, laugh and fall. The music features a intriguing mix of jazz-sounds, blended with electronics and classical singing.

Performance history

11.12.2010 Theater Zeebelt Den Haag (research)

7.12.2012 Theater Zeebelt Den Haag

8.12.2012 Theater Zeebelt Den Haag

11.1.2013 OCW Rotterdam

12.1.2013 OCW Rotterdam

13.1.2013 OCW Rotterdam