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GAIN EXTRA INCHES! DIE [SPAM]
OPER
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Schauspielhaus Idee, Komposition, Conductor: |
Waisenjunge, Nurse, Lover
u.v.a. - |
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„Amusing Spam-Revue“ World premiere: The small theatre group Progetto semiserio showcased "Gain extra inches! The [SPAM]Opera" in Vienna Schauspielhaus theatre, an energetic spam-revue: unsolicited advertising mails were assembled to build an amusing sequence of musical pieces.
Spam is of course a scandal. The unsolicited commercial e-mails mixes with their cheap promises randomly among our private and business e-mail correspondence. Nearly 85% of e-mails worldwide are spam. Spam is part of a criminal economy, which is turning over millions or billions of dollars each year. (No one knows exactly how much money it really is.) The open structure of the Internet makes it easy to spammers – but if we were to agree to a strict regulation of the Internet? If one can not help it, we can at least make it funny. Or we can understand spam as a phenomenon of a globalized, networked market, as an expression of a "world culture", which normalizes the wishes and aspirations of mankind: from brand-name up to the ideals of beauty. But for artists spam is much more tempting: He tells stories commonplace in many variations, they arouse passions and emotions, the bad translations stimulate language criticism. Text of spam mails are like alienating islands of a new concrete poetry, which can be very attractive to theater producers, writers and composers. In ancient times poems were set to music, now spam - what is more "contemporary"? About 80% of the libretto of "Gain extra inches! The [SPAM] Opera" is composed of texts of spammed e-mails. The audience meets African begging letters and faked brand watches, V***** -triggered sexual dreams and magic bullets for weight loss. Right at the beginning a “spammer” presents himself, he gives a few glimpses of his earthly existence. What follows is no "story" in the strict sense but rather an easygoing "discussion" on various types of spam, divided into eleven scenes with different pieces of music. The Greek-Austrian composer Periklis Liakakis has added a four-piece orchestra (sax, accordion, contrabass, theremin) with recordings from the tape to set the spam in music. The sound is not really "operatic", often rhythmically stressed. According to the style he can be most likely attributed to the pragmatism of modern minimalist composers from e. g. the USA or Great Britain. Liakakis maintains a playful style. He has even composed a Spammer-Rap, in which the sound system gets going. The mourning of a mother who begs for money for the operation of their child becomes a pathetic "Lamento". (Probably meant something ironic?) From tape moans of pleasure were highlighting V***** strengthened male ego and fading away. The evening lasted 75 minutes. The pieces of music were entertaining, a potpourri of revue, cabaret, musical and a very small bit of opera. The play was staged by Anika Haller. On the small stage, a world of cardboard boxes was built and vividly illuminated. Until the finale even the boxes were transformed into small, man-high skyscrapers: a rudimentary Manhattan in the Vienna Schauspielhaus. Slapstick and pathetic pose questioned (self-) ironically the lyrics and offered a suitable complement to the music. Perhaps one would have expected at the end of the evening the big "aha effect” or more social critic. But brief spoken interludes contributed some basic information on the phenomenon of "spam." This had an "enlightened" character. The soloists Genoveva dos Santos, Bartolo Musil und Katrin Schurich were consistently pleasing, both vocally and in their characterizations. Genoveva dos Santos has a young, beautiful sounding soprano. Bartolo Musil contributed his clear, eloquent baritone. Actress Kartin Schurich was speaking about faked brand watches and other “goodies”. The audience of the premiere seemed very satisfied. Further performances are still on 28. and 31 August.
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