PHYSICAL EDUCATION
documentary chambner opera, 2022/23

Commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin, winner of Neue Szenen VI composition competition.
The work was first performed at the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin on the 21st of April 2023.

theme:
There is nothing more intimate that our own “skin”. Yet western culture, based on the dichotomy between spirit and body, has led the individual to consider his/her body as something external, clay to manipulate at one’s desire. The body is a merchandising and merchandized product, selling certain beauty canons and lifestyle routines, in which we do not always recognize ourselves. We relate to it in its erection of a temple of health and beauty; in the punishment of its pleasures; in the alienating conformity to unrealistic ideals and to the mythology of an eternally young body. The freedom to self-determine ourselves turns paradoxically into a mere catwalk. Throughout the conflict of different body’s narratives, the individual is struggling to define who he/she is.

What is the true relationship between one’s body and identity? Is the body determining who we are supposed to be? Or are we able to manipulate our body to show at best what’s our own true self?

The Libretto is the result of different interviews on specific topics and aspects about people’s body. The interviews have been re-manipulated to write an original text that is following a specific dramaturgy, that is also the guideline of the musical dramaturgy

SCENES:
Embodiment · Herculean body · Mindful body · Expanded body · Aging body

Text from interviews with: Ido Akov, Jay Yule, Neringa Kaminskaitė, Matthias Maeir, Domantas Pūras, Nora Krahl, Fiammetta Tarallo, Alissa Pelino, Paolo Fornasier, Farrukh Pirov, Julia Debowska and Haein Choi

Duration: approx. 27 min.