Woyzeck

PROGRAM: S'nJIP's WOYZECK—An Electropop Opera based on Georg Büchner’s dramatic fragment of the same name, 2023–25 Original text: Georg BüchnerLibretto: JIPMusic: UMS’nJIPExternal Advisor: Wolfgang BeuschelSet & Lighting: UMS’nJIPCast: Ulrike Mayer-Spohn, Javier HagenRunning time: 75mFree admission - CollectionReservations at mebu@umsnjip.chPROGRAMMNOTIZENWoyzeck Based on Georg Büchner’s dramatic fragment of the same name, this is a musical theater production by and featuring UMS’nJIP (Ulrike Mayer-Spohn and Javier Hagen), directed by Wolfgang Beuschel. The text on which UMS'nJIP’s *Woyzeck* is based is Büchner’s original, abridged and dramaturgically condensed. In UMS'nJIP’s interpretation, Woyzeck perceives the world with far too much sensitivity: he has too many sensory inputs and is overwhelmed by his inability to filter them. To allow the audience to experience this state for themselves, UMS'nJIP creates a soundscape: The audience is immersed in a hybrid of tableau vivant, installation, performance, and music theater. The performers blend into the sound textures and disappear into the soundscape.Musically, UMS’nJIP play with the aesthetics of 1980s synth-pop and delicate processes of resonance and dissolution, as established by composers such as Furrer and Sciarrino. Serial compositional techniques and circular motifs reflect the hopelessness of Woyzeck’s existence. The treatment of the singing voice is particularly noteworthy: JIP assigns a single timbre to each role. The only role that undergoes a vocal transformation is Woyzeck: he is also the only one who—and only at the beginning of the play—possesses a normal speaking voice. Over the course of the play, he passes through all vocal timbres until he ends up with the deranged vocal timbre assigned to the Captain.On stage, a woman and a man are seen at two workbenches, though it is left open whether they represent Marie and Woyzeck. Rather, one gets the impression of a home workshop. Their task is remarkably simple: to bring order out of chaos. UMS’nJIP’s *Woyzeck* invites the audience to pause and listen, to tune in, and to meander through the mechanics of a musical-theatrical process based on a well-known classical text: a study of social milieu that, thanks to its realism, continues to grip audiences emotionally to this day. With their electropop operas ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, EINER, SANCHO, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, numerous semi-staged and performative commissioned works, and the music theater productions in collaboration with the CETC at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, UMS’nJIP has been able to draw on years of experience with the genre since 2007. With virtuosity and irony, they play with a wide variety of aesthetics and employ an unconventional yet light “pocket-sized” format that h&oum

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