When I speak,
I tell you my opinion.

When I sing,
I show you my heart.

 

This series explored the power of singing from other cultures during our first two seasons with the scenic performances Wiegenlieder and Liebeslieder, concerts and the multi-part series Voice Stories, and now it enters its third season. Because nothing affects us as immediately as singing – it is an expression of deepest emotions like happiness or grief, it tells age-old tales as well as stories that were just invented, and it overcomes all language barriers. And so the State Opera will continue to provide a platform for voices from other cultures and traditions at the city’s centre. There will be guest performances by international artists as well as cooperation projects with musicians from Hanover and its surroundings; staged projects will be juxtaposed with discursive formats that shed light on the question of why exactly it is that people sing.

 

Concerts

After the brilliant and immediately sold-out concert by Kurdish singer Aynur in January 2020, the series had to be interrupted due to the Covid 19-pandemic. From 2022, the main stage at the Opera House will once more be the venue for concerts by celebrated singers from various cultures. And Aynur will return in January 2022!

 

Oumou Sangaré is the star of Western Africa: Her music is rooted in the historic Wassoulou-region of Mali. From there, she carries her message into the world, full of political commitment and musical sophistication.

 

Cristina Branco brings traditional Portuguese Fado to our present times: Influenced by jazz, bossa nova and rock, she lends new glamour and a multi-layered mellowness to the melancholy genre.

 

Intimate, avant-garde and yet steeped in tradition – Iva Bittová is one of the most interesting musicians at the interface of classical music, folklore and jazz. Accompanying herself on the violin, she processes influences of her Jewish and Hungarian Roma-family and creates her own tonal language, which is further inspired by the minimal music of her adopted home in the US. There, she founded “Žingora – School of Voice“, a singing school that is also open to amateurs and has become a centre for collective singing.

 

Iva Bittová brings this experience to Hanover: Apart from her solo-concert, she will hold a two-day singing workshop for 15 singers of all ages and with no previous training. How can I use my voice to express my emotional world? A final presentation of the workshop results will follow Iva Bittová’s motto of “I believe in the freedom of the voice.”

Taking part in the workshop is free of charge. The number of participants is limited to 15. Please register at stimmen@staatstheater-hannover.de by 01.05.2022.

 

The music of the Czech groups Lesní zvěř and Horňácká muzika Petra Mičky oscillates between Czech folklore and jazz-pop. Their joint project “Hrubá Hudba”, which could be roughly translated to mean “Rough Music”, draws on Slavic folklore and combines traditional singing and cimbalom-music from Eastern Moravia with elements of pop music. The result is a jam session between music’s heritage and its future. The band of eleven musicians will bring their joint double album to Hanover, proving that traditional music is alive and well in the Czech Republic – and how captivating and moving it is for international audiences, too.

 

Voice Stories

In this discursive format with music, which will be realized both in the form of live events and as a podcast, singers from our opera company and guests from different singing traditions will talk about their (not exclusively) musical origins.

 

With the kind support of Stiftung Niedersachsen

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