Under Ice // Opera

“Democracy is all very well and definitely the ultimate goal and for an intact society with a healthy, functioning economy, it’s also the best social model, but at the moment I think we’re completely stymied by this system.”
(Karl Sonnenschein in Falk Richter’s Under ice, Scene 7)

Management consultant Paul Niemand starts having doubts about himself and his work. Images from his childhood blend into the disappointments of his professional life. The demonstrable success of his colleagues intimidates him. Their manic and highly pressured activism extends into his private life and reveals it to be an empty shell. An increasingly delirious loner, he gradually starts to disappear from a reality he finds inhuman.

“A new opera in the world. A completely new world in the opera: for the first time a writer and composer have created a piece of music theatre set in the world of management consultancy; with some justice Under Ice can be called the first ‘consulting opera’ in musical history. In an elegant mix of different vocal techniques, from normal speech through rhythmic monologues to extended sung cantilenas hope and disappointment collide here and the complete absurdity of a streamlined cultural organization unfolds, optimized in response to ‘representative questionnaires’. Satirizing the madness of management consultancy and the poetics of failure come together in one of the most exciting new operas of the season.”
(Die Welt)