Alles kann passieren
eine Chorprobe
Author(s) Norbert Sterk, Doron Rabinovici
Norbert Sterk, Composition & Doron Rabinovici, Libretto
Die Einstimmung premiered as a staged concert at the Wien Modern Festival under the title Alles kann passieren - eine Chorprobe (Everything Can Happen - A Choir Rehearsal) and consists almost exclusively of speeches by European right-wing populists. Orban, Salvini, Zeman, Kickl, and Strache are quoted.
"Das, was gesagt wird", writes Doron Rabinovici, "kann doch nicht wahr sein, denken wir, doch wen kümmert’s schon, denn es wird wahr, in dem es gesagt wird. Was nicht stimmt, stimmt ein, um die anderen niederzustimmen. Das Unsagbare ist wieder ausgesprochen beredt.“ (What is said, can't be true, we think, but who cares, because it becomes true the moment it is said. What isn't true joins in to put down the others. The unspeakable is once again exceptionally eloquent.)
I expressed what is important to me about this musical political theater as follows:
"Listening to the speeches of politicians as if they were arias or cleverly arranged music, I began to compose, paying attention to their rhythmic peculiarities, their compass, colour, sound and prosody. Was it hypocritically breathed, whispered, purred or delivered with a rough twang, screaming or with soothing gentleness? Did the speakers know how to use their voice with a pithy or thin tone, full of seemingly genuine emotion? Were the lies audible by the sound of the voice alone? Does the mood affect the voice? Does it turn or end abruptly? When does a voice seem to stumble, crumble or shift hysterically, talk away insecurities hesitantly or forcefully? When does a closure of the vocal folds sound determined? As if looking through a magnifying glass, I tried to observe speech and word in their sound alone, to make the different physiognomies of the voices shine through composing, to listen deep beneath their outer skin, to tease out their commonalities and unite them in a kind of hurricane of voices. As soon as the tongue articulates, drumming delicately against the forming mouth, the measured stream of breath keeps the determined vocal folds in motion – the instrumental ensemble oscillates, too; a sounding seismograph of the bashful as well as the brazen, the depressing as well as the euphoric contents, a kind of vibrating detector."