Part of my German lessons involve some exposure to German culture in the form of out of hours class outings. They are voluntary and self funded but the school manages to get good deals so they are inexpensive. Last night the school arranged tickets to an Improvised Opera. I wasn't particularly keen, after 8 lessons in German I didn't think I would get much out of it, but Annika was interested so we decided to go. I am glad to say that I really enjoyed the evening. The below is my interpretation of what went on because, let's face it, I didn't have a clue what was happening half the time.
The show started with the five performers (four singers and pianist) introducing each other and explaining how the evening would run. Everything, from the music to the lyrics would be improvised based on input from the audience. The first act had the troupe asking the audience for an object and 4 different emotions. Unfortunately the audience consisted mainly of Bavarian pensioners with limited imagination. The object was an axe and the emotions were love, anger, jealousy and apathy. Each singer then improvised a song expressing one of the emotions with the central theme being an axe. The pianist knew which emotion each singer had to sing about so had some idea of what tone to set.
The following act had the troupe produce the Bavarian equivalent of The Sun news paper and asked an audience member to select an article. The article was something to do with a badger on a street. I haven't a clue what they sang about but the actions and facial expressions were entertaining. The next act was the pick of the crop. One member of the team interviewed a lady in the audience about her family and what she had done that day. She was married with a son that was living or treking in India and it was a fairly ordinary day. She cleaned the whole house, cooked her husband chicken for lunch then rode her bike 10 kms through the cold before retiring for the afternoon to read her book. The troupe then proceeded to sing and act out a dream sequence for this lady. This was hilarious and the bit where 3 members were acting and singing like giant chickens attacking the forth who was representing the central character (the lady from the audience) had me in tears.
During the intermission the troupe handed out small pieces of paper and asked the audience to write a sentence on them. Being the cool and aloof individual that I am, I refused to be drawn into contributing but Annika insisted and I can never say no to my wife. I chose to write "Das Fahrrad is schnell and schwarz" Pretty inspirational stuff. Some more astute readers might spot a reoccurring theme to my life.
The first act after intermission had the troupe collect all the pieces of paper and spread them on the floor of the stage. They then asked the audience to choose the relationship of each singer to the rest so a scene could be set. The singing started and each member, whilst in full voice, had to randomly pick up a piece of paper an incorporate the sentence into their song. I am proud to say that they got a lot of miles out of my black bicycle but I am a little concerned that somebody had written "Der Australia ist sexy" and the troupe got even more miles out of that sentence. I am almost 100% certain that it was written by somebody from the school and 99% certain that it was directed at the other Australian in attendance that evening, who was much sexier than I am. After all he claimed to come from Queensland. A claim I am some what suspicious off since in a subsequent conversation he stated that people from Western Australia speak r e a l l y s l o w l y. I found this interesting as it is common knowledge amongst the populations of all the states and territories of Australia, with the exception of Queensland, that if you want to have a conversation with a Queenslander you have to take a packed lunch and a good book. Queenslanders can write faster than they can speak hence the enormous popularity of social networking tools such as Facebook, email, sms, etc. in Brisbane.
The last act paled in comparison to the previous two but that was partially due to an unimaginative audience consisting predominantly of the afore mentioned Bavarian pensioners, whose collective idea of risqué subjects was knitting, doner kebabs and bikinis. Luckily the troupe, recognising that some of their audience consisted of Australians managed to incorporate Australian sheep farmers into the story.
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