Tuesday | 30 June 2026

Baroque musical splendour meets surrealist modernism

Interdisciplinary opera premiere featuring works by Purcell and Francis Poulenc’s *Les mamelles de T

A press release from Jens Fischer

An evening of opera that bridges two worlds, yet poses a common question: What really matters in life? The HfK Bremen invites you to an extraordinary double bill, “in which the splendour of Baroque music and surrealist modernism mirror and enhance one another”, according to director Ansgar Weigner. Well over 100 students are involved in the production, both on and off stage. The premiere takes place on 9 July 2026 at 7 pm in Speicher XI A, Hall 1. Further performances: 10 and 11 July 2026, both at 7 pm, and on 12 July 2026 at 3 pm.

In the first part, the Early Music Department, under the direction of Detlef Bratschke, presents the opera pasticcio ‘Seven’, based on an idea by the South African opera director Kobie van Rensburg. He has selected pieces from Henry Purcell’s rich repertoire – including excerpts from the operas ‘King Arthur’ and ‘The Fairy Queen’ – and supplemented them with works by other Baroque composers. Director Ansgar Weigner weaves the arias and songs into an existential narrative. The story centres on a young woman who is preparing for her milestone birthday and eagerly awaiting the arrival of her friends and family. But shortly before the guests arrive, she receives a diagnosis from her doctor that turns her life upside down. Weigner: “The musical theatre production that follows shows, with subtle humour and poignant tragedy, how fragile even seemingly stable friendships can become when comfort and help fall on deaf ears. How do you approach someone whose world is falling apart? What do you say when every word sounds wrong? And how do you find your own footing when you want to help but feel utterly helpless? The pasticcio becomes a quiet yet powerful exploration of what endures in life when certainties vanish.”

The costumes for the production are tailored from paper fabric by Emilia Sting, an HfK alumna from the Integrated Design programme. Students of Figurative Painting have created the painted designs on the surfaces – as well as the set design. Video artist Erik Wälz (a student of Digital Media) visualises the settings and the inner lives of the characters, projecting the videos onto mobile stage elements and using laser beams to allow the singers to interact with the moving images.

In the second part, the evening takes a radical leap into the modern era: The Classical Department of the HfK Bremen, together with the university’s large orchestra conducted by An-Hoon Song, stages Francis Poulenc’s opéra-bouffe ‘Les mamelles de Tirésias’ (premiered in 1947): a series of neoclassically influenced numbers with abundant allusions to the musical canon.The work playfully and humorously subverts traditional gender roles, takes a light-hearted approach to the sociological theory of ‘doing gender’, and comes across as a contemporary allusion to our queer, diverse society. The creative energy drawn from the music encourages us to engage with life through surreal rather than algorithmic logic, and to celebrate the anarchic power of art and imagination.

In grotesque exaggeration, the story is told of Thérèse, who has had enough of constantly seeing the world through the lens of male expectations. She boycotts the life of a housewife, parts with her breasts and refuses the role of childbearer. Her husband takes on this role, producing 40,050 children a day in a sort of surreal laboratory. On the one hand, this sounds like an act of national heroism, compensating for war-related losses in the population. On the other hand, it plunges the state into economic chaos. Meanwhile, Thérèse, now known as Theresias, advocates gender swapping as a form of emancipation.

The libretto, set to music by Poulenc during the Second World War, had been written by Guillaume Apollinaire upon his return from the First World War. With the profound extravagance of his wordplay, he crafted a hymn to life, to change and to the freedom to think in all directions. According to Ansgar Weigner, *Les mamelles de Tirésias* shows “how societies have always oscillated between conservative and liberal extremes, often triggered by crises or wars. It celebrates an era that is astonishingly close to our own, whilst at the same time criticising a world increasingly characterised by economics, selfishness and dwindling empathy. Precisely because history repeats itself and new conflicts loom on the horizon, this work remains alarmingly relevant. The result is an evening that oscillates between light-heartedness and existential depth, between baroque intimacy and surrealist exuberance. An evening that makes us laugh but also gives us food for thought. And one that reminds us that musical theatre does not merely tell stories, but constantly asks us anew how we want to live – and how we treat one another.”

Regie: Prof. Ansgar Weigner

Regieassistenz: Nae Kohatsu Matakas

Video: Erik Wälz (Digitale Medien, Klasse Prof. Ralf Baecker)

Gesamt-Ausstattung: Heike Neugebauer

Kostüme/Bühnendekoration: Studierende der Klasse Prof. Heike Kati Barath (Figurative Malerei)

Kostüm KA: Emilia Sting

Maske: Emil Ackmann

- - -

„Seven“ – Opern-Pasticcio mit Musik von H. Purcell nach einer Vorlage von Kobie van Rensburg

Barockensemble der Alten Musik, Leitung: Prof. Detlef Bratschke

Solist:innen

- - -

„Les mamelles de Tirésias“ von Francis Poulenc

Projektchor und Hochschulorchester, Leitung: An-Hoon Song

Solisten:
Thérèse/La cartomancienne: Madoka Sakai, Shiyi Huang, Tianyi Xiong | La marchande de journaux: Xinnan Huang | La dame elegante: Tianyi Xiong, Zhangtianyi Li | La dame grosse: Annelie Franke, Bella Gutay | Le mari: Fabian Geier, Francisco Henriques | Le Gendarme: Runyu Jiang | Le directeur: Hwanyeong Jeong | Presto/Le monsieur barbu: Sangwoo Choi, Wenzhuo Jiang | Lacouf=Lacouffe: Yein Kim, Yujia Ding | Le Journaliste: Chaoyan Yang | Le fils=La fille: Ida Grotke, Lotta Wolter

Chor:
Tianyi Xiong, Zhangtianyi Li, Ida Grotke, Lotta Wolter, Lioba Brändle (Sopran) | Seungmin Baek, Annelie Franke, Bella Gutay (Alt) | Alexander Schmidt, Yein Kim, Yujia Ding, Chaoyan Yang (Tenor) | Shirui Liang, Jakob Jänig, Christopher Neale, Sangwoo Choi, Wenzhuo Jiang, Hwanyeong Jeong (Bass)

Hochschulorchester:
Flöte: Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya, Jinyi Wang, Elise Godin, Huixin Chen | Oboe: Kaipeng Wang, Yingchen Chen, Yuzhe Jiang, Leiye Qiu | Klarinette, Bassklarinette: t.b.a. | Fagott: Ting-Chih Liang, You-Rong Chen, Hyunshin Kim | Horn: Maki Fujimoto, Gonçalo Ferreira, Estrella Prada Ramírez, Maximilian Faust | Trompete: Biel Pelfort Bartoló, Yi-Hsin Chuang, José María García Heras, Patrick Rohloff | Posaune: Roman Lokhmachev, Alexander Lehmbecker | Tuba: Sota Yamamoto | Pauke/Schlagwerk: Sebastián Cartes Chaparro, Hyeonyu Goh, Xueou Chen | Harfe: Jara Egen | Klavier: Jintao Zhu, Weier Zeng | Violine I: Johanna Baron, Hirona Ise, Xingfeng Luo, Miao Liu, Chih-Ning Yang, Yu-Ci Yang, Pia Constanza Barrios Gomez, David Rosenberg, Seewoo Park, Lina Zakharava, Miao Liu, Hirona Ise, Yun-Chen Wu, Till Funk | Violine II: Alvaro Cordova Luna, Sinhá Winkler, Shuyu Wang, Claudia Jung, Shuran Yang, Yung-Hsi, Amèlia Fellows Morey, Chiara Stanese, Mariami Zdragat, Sinhá Winkler, Yung-Hsi Ko, Claudia Jung | Viola: Elias Falk, Facundo Ortega, Siyu Xiang, Audrey Monfils, Joaquin Leon Fernandez (SF), Tunya Sahin, Liam Marong, Polet Silva Lorca | Violoncello: Michael Schorr, Zoya Chumachenco, Clemens Parketny, Yijia Liu, Vaughan Kennedy Mc Lea, Zofia Momot, Yuhe Yang, Luca Miedek | Kontrabass: Hanbit Lee, Mingnan Guan, Dong-Seong Min, Ke-Ching Chen, Fridtjof Springer, Xiangji Hu