NOperas! / feXm

The "Fonds Experimentelles Musiktheater" (feXm) has been the relevant funding initiative for new music theatre formats in German-speaking countries for almost two decades. It develops, promotes and produces together with ensembles in the independent theatre scene and in association with theatres and opera houses. The feXm was initiated by the NRW KULTURsekretariat in 2005 and will be funded jointly with the Kunststiftung NRW until 2023. From the 2024/25 season, the fund will be continued with its "NOperas!" initiative under the sole sponsorship of NRWKS.

Since 2018, "NOperas!" has brought together several theatres, including those outside NRW, over a period of three seasons to jointly develop one music theatre project per season and present it on all stages in different site-specific project variants. This enables an artistically and ecologically sustainable approach that places the process at the centre rather than the "product". On the basis of annual calls for proposals, a jury with participants from the theatres and the sponsor as well as external experts will decide on the selection of the project, which will be funded with up to 200,000 euros. The next call for proposals is expected to take place in spring 2024 for the 2025/26 season.

The fifth "NOperas!" production will premiere in the second half of the 2023/24 season - realised by an international team consisting of Davor Vincze (composition), Aleksandar Hut Kono (libretto), Premil Petrović (conducting), Heinrich Horwitz (direction), Magdalena Emmerig (stage, costume), Rosa Wernecke (video, lighting) and Jasna Witkoski (artistic production management). Under the title "Freedom Collective", the audience is invited to immerse themselves in an immersive theatre labyrinth at the interface of different realities and levels of experience. The first production is at the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen, where the premiere will take place on 10 February 2024 (further dates: 11 and 17 February). This will be followed by further development at Theater Bremen (premiere: 30 March, further dates 4 April and 7 April) and Staatstheater Darmstadt (premiere: 24 May, further dates 6 June and 15 June).

For the 2024/25 season, a concept by the newly formed collective "Dritte Degeneration Ost" (Third Degeneration East) was selected, which brings together the artists Mathias Baresel, Antonia Beeskow, Romy Dins, Friederike Gawenda, Frithjof Gawenda and Laurenz Raschke. The sixth "NOperas!" work focuses on the resistance of an East German punk musician against the GDR regime and his unsuccessful search for freedom in reunified Germany. The theatres in Bremen, Gelsenkirchen and Darmstadt are involved in this production, which concludes the second three-year cycle.