The Munich Biennale (german: Münchener Biennale) is a contemporary

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

and

music theatre Music theatre is a performance genre that emerged over the course of the 20th century, in opposition to more conventional genres like opera and musical theatre. The term came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s to describe an avant-garde approa ...

festival in the city of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. The full German name is ''Internationales Festival für neues Musiktheater'', literally: International Festival for New Music Theater. The biennial festival was created in 1988 by

Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...

and is held in even-numbered years over 2–3 weeks in the late spring. The festival concentrates on world premieres of theater-related

contemporary music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included se ...

, with a particular focus on commissioning first operas from young composers.

History

Hans Werner Henze's artistic directorship (1988–1996)

Henze, himself a prolific composer of operas, described the genesis of the festival like this: Henze curated the first four festivals, from 1988 to 1994, and established the general format of most of the festivals that followed. Short runs of the premiered operas are preceded by talks and additional concerts from the featured composers, to introduce the audiences to their ideas and music.

Peter Ruzicka's artistic directorship (1996–2014)

Peter Ruzicka took over as artistic director ("one of the most influential administrative/ artistic positions in the European music-theatre scene") in 1996, with that year's biennale being jointly curated by Henze. Ruzicka broadened the scope of the works presented, with more emphasis on works using multimedia, and moving away from the text-based sources that characterised the period curated by Henze.

Manos Tsangaris and Daniel Ott's artistic directorship (2016–)

The composers

Manos Tsangaris Manos Tsangaris (born 8 December 1956) is a German composer, musician, sound art installation and performance artist, and a poet. Life Born in Düsseldorf, Tsangaris studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln from 1976 to 1983 composit ...

and Daniel Ott took over as joint artistic directors of the Biennale, starting in 2016. Their approach to curation further expanded the festival's remit beyond opera, to reflect an 'expanded composition term' and the 'open field' of new music theatre which spans ' om new opera to scenic installation, from minimalized artistic interventions in municipal spaces to composed performance'.

Operas given at the Munich Biennale

World premieres are marked as WP

Significance

The Munich Biennale has provided first or early commissions for stage works from many composers now established as opera composers, such as Mark-Anthony Turnage,

Detlev Glanert Detlev Glanert (born 6 September 1960) is a German opera composer, who has also composed numerous works for chamber and full orchestra, including three symphonies. Life Detlev Glanert was born in Hamburg in 1960. He came to music late, learnin ...

Gerd Kühr Gerd Kühr, also Gerd Kuhr (born 28 December 1952 in Maria Luggau), is an Austrian conductor, composer of classical music and academic teacher. He is known for operas, such as ''Stallerhof'' on a libretto by the author of the play, Franz Xaver K ...

, Hans-Jürgen von Bose, Param Vir,

Toshio Hosokawa is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He studied in Germany but returned to Japan, finding a personal style inspired by classical Japanese music and culture. He has composed operas, the oratorio ''Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima'' ...

and Violeta Dinescu. The strongly international scope of the festival has meant that it has been able to offer opportunities missing at a national level.Salzman, Desi; p.222: ".. with one or two notable exceptions, the lively London theatre and music scene has not developed a strong creative music-theatre component. The result is that the Munich Biennale and the film industry have sometimes been better patrons for new British opera and music theatre than local musical institutions".

References

Notes Sources
münchener biennale
Festival website Retrieved 13 March 2012 *

External links

*Peter & Alexa Woolf

musicweb-international.com 2000 *John Warnaby

musicweb-international.com 20 May 2006

Münchener Merkur 23 April 2010
Münchener Biennale / Urwald-Symphonie und surrealer Seelentrip

Bayerischer Rundfunk Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR; "Bavarian Broadcasting") is a public-service radio and television broadcaster, based in Munich, capital city of the Free State of Bavaria in Germany. BR is a member organization of the ARD consortium of public broadcas ...

14 May 2010 *Gerhard Rohde
Münchener Biennale / Wozu der ganze Aufwand?
FAZ 12 May 2010 {{Authority control Opera festivals Contemporary classical music festivals Music festivals in Germany

Biennale Biennale (), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popular ...