Zara Ali (CC '18) presented a new chamber opera, What Joy, at Transformation in Tischlerei at Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 30, 2025. The chamber opera will have two more showings, on May 1st and May 3rd.
Here is a message from the composer with more information about the compositional process:
If you're passing through Berlin this week, I warmly invite you to my new chamber opera What Joy at the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin:
https://deutscheoperberlin.de/de_DE/production/neue-szenen-vii.1357369
This musical work creates a new sonic world, inhabited by techno-emotional brain emulations (EMs) and the themes that connect them with us humans.
For several years, I have been researching this material, which is based on the book The Age of EM: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth by economist and sociologist Robin Hanson.
You can find more information about the work, the entire team, and the outstanding cast at the link above.
The first composition connected to this futuristic world premiered this February at the ECLAT Festival with ensemble mosaik:
Confections of the Mind: https://www.eclat.org/werk/confections-of-the-mind-braindance-72603/
Although it shares a similar backstory and mythology, it follows a completely different aesthetic approach and integrates text. The writer Hannah Dübgen and I spent about a year developing this text, paying careful attention to a continually flowing rhythmic meter of syllables and poetry.
You can also find an article here that offers insight into how the singers approached the learning process for the music:
https://deutscheoperberlin.de/de_DE/meistersinger-von-morgen
Warm regards,
Zara Ali
