The POC (Pocket Opera Company): Germany's oldest independent musical theater
The Pocket Opera Company
This highly motivated, international ensemble was established in conjunction with the conductor David Seaman and the director Peter B.Wyrsch in 1974. Originally christened "opernstudio Nürnberg e.V., " the Pocket Opera Company is fresh, witty, just a bit English, and highly professional. From the soap opera drag shows of the early years ("The Grandduchess of Gerolstein," "Die Geierwally," "The Vampire") to the adaptation of a major opera ("The Ring") to minimalist high-tech musical pieces, the POC has always moved between genres, broken barriers, and established its own term of expresssion: the POCKET OPERA.
The bourgeois operas of the past century, in their grotesque proliferation, were put to the test of the Pocket Opera. Examples include: "La Giocanda" by Ponchielli, "Semiramide" by Rossini, "Lucrezia Borgia" by Donizietti, and continue up to the rediscovery of George Antheil.
The program is characterized by commissioned modern chamber operas or theater productions such as the adaptation of Richard Wagner's "The Ring," performed for over a decade and presented as a one-evening performance at the renowned Convent Garden Opera Festival.
The Pocket Opera Company develops productions, adapts them to suit each performance venue, and has produced a star or two. The POC is topical, on the pulse of time, bewitched by the magic of opera, and always on the search for new possibilities. The POC moves with wide-eyed curiosity through the world of music and the images of the theater.
The POC is at home on the stage and festival scene in Europe and abroad (as evidenced by the 2003 guest performance at the Alliance Francaise in New York), as well as at all conceivable and inconceivable performance venues.
The POC is a co-initator of the event series "6 Days of Opera – a Marathon to Benefit Contemporary Opera" in the Nuremberg Region. Cooperation with the Fürth Regional Theater, the Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen Theater, Rossini Festival Wildbad, OFF TAT Frankfurt, the Velbert Operal Festival, the Dehnberg Theater, Dresden's Center for Contemporary Music, the Leipzig Opera, the Lyon Opera, Mousonturm Frankfurt, and Bavarian Radio among others, the concept of the POC as part of the small-scale opera movement is increasingly taking hold. The Pocket Opera is a co-founder of the E.C.O.P. (European Chamber Opera Pool) with headquarters in Ghent.
Over twelve composers (including Franz Hummel, Shih, Andrea Molino, Alessandro Melchiorre, and Peter Kiesewetter) have written for or collaborated with the Pocket Opera Company.(u.a. Heiner Goebbels 2000).
Above all, themes are seized upon which preoccupy our society and as a result, do not welcome a strictly academic adaptation. Examples include: Oliviero Toscani advertising ("the smiling carcass. the opera," which premiered on 4.18.1999), autism as a societal disease, mobility and its stress factor (Give Me Back the Ball, which premiered on 3.20.96), and the moratorium against the death penalty ("Those Who Speak in a Faint Voice," which premiered in 2002). Again and again, the Pocket Opera performs in unusual places, such as in a railroad repair facility, a former airplane hangar ("unreported.inbound.palermo," which premiered on 2.18.97), a shopping mall, a bank lobby, and a power plant turbine (2003). As a result, the audience's curiosity overrides the typical barriers faced by new music..
Together with the conductors David Seaman, Andrea Molino, and most recently, Franz Killer and director Peter B. Wyrsch, several vocalists have shaped the unusual work of the Pocket Opera Company. Among these are the Wagner vocalist Wolfgang Schmidt, as well as Jennifer Rhys-Davies, Elizabeth Kingdon, and David Moss.
By contrasting baroque operas with contemporary music, the Pocket Opera Company has pursued new elements of tension in the conception of musical theater since 2003.
In doing so, it creates contemporary material using the combination of aristocratic works of the 17th-century - some of which have long since been forgotten or rarely performed - with the world of sound of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Performance venues such as a power plant (Heizkraftwerk Franken), waste incinerating plant (Müllschwelanlage Fürth), a river gorge (Schwarzachklamm bei Schwarzenbruck), or lastly, a racing track (Radrennbahn Katzwang) certainly contribute to the pointedness of the material, whereas some pieces are created with regard to their specific locations.
Among these are:
POC Barock 1, a pastiche of Baroque elements and experimental vocal acrobatics in science-fiction costumes (2003).
Orlando by G.F. Händel, performed between enormous paddle wheels of the turbine hall at the E.on power plant in Nuremberg (2003).
-One Charming Night, a contrast and connection of two operas: Purcell's "The Fairy Queen" with Sylvano Bussotti's "La passion selon Sade" at Fürth's waste incinerating plant.
-And lastly, the Baroque opera by J.B. Lully, house and court composer of the Sun King Ludwig XIV. Following a centuries-long deep sleep, this opera was revived by the POC. With its combination of music and text by Moondog and Dorris Dörries, respectively, it experienced a never-heard brilliance and topicality (2005).
In August 2007, Franz Killer, who as POC's musical director had led the new Baroque program since 2003, took on the additional position of artistic director. After 33 years, Peter Wyrsch took leave from this position at the Pocket Opera Company Nuremberg. He assumed the position of artistic director at the Städtebundtheater Biel / Solothurn in Switzerland.
