TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM END OF JULY!
Zara Ali Codeborn — Music Theater (2026), Austrian premiere, 60’
Zara Ali, composition, concept & text
Hannah Dübgen, stage adaptation & concept
Marlene Schleicher & Diana Merkel, dramaturgy
Florentine Klepper, director
Deva Schubert, co-director & choreography
Wolfgang Menardi, set & costumes
Lucy Altus, soprano
Paul Schweinester, tenor
Julien Horbatuk, baritone
Thomas Lichtenecker, countertenor
Hansjörg Sofka, musical direction
PHACE – Ensemble for new music:
Walter Seebacher, Klarinette; Michael Krenn, Saxophon; Mathilde Hoursiangou, Keyboard; Manuel Alcaraz Clemente, Percussion; Francesco Palmieri, E-Gitarre; Roland Schueler, Cello; Alexandra Dienz, Kontrabass
A co-production of the Munich Biennale and the Tyrolean State Theater Innsbruck, in cooperation with the Bavarian State Opera, Ars Electronica Linz, and Klangspuren Schwaz. Commissioned by the City of Munich for the Munich Biennale, with the kind support of the Gisela Gronemeyer Foundation.
With Codeborn, Zara Ali unfolds a music theater piece of unsettling relevance. In the fictional world of Benthos, a society is subject to the power of artificial intelligence and drawn into an unstoppable process of transformation. Boundaries blur, old orders crumble, virtual spaces promise closeness and belonging — yet the price of this freedom is high. At the heart of the story stands Guy, a brilliant programmer who realizes how deeply the state intervenes in people’s lives through so-called Dolls, surveilling and manipulating them. When he falls in love with Nur, a virtual apparition of unsettling presence, his perception begins to falter: between reality and simulation, conformity and resistance, a struggle takes shape — for self-determination, for love, and for the question of what human life can still mean in a radically transformed world.
Musically, Ali weaves a vibrant soundscape from four solo voices, electronics, and the musicians of the Ensemble PHACE: precise, physical, and highly sensitive in its details. In this way, Codeborn makes this societal upheaval immediately audible, beyond cultural pessimism and dystopia. A sensual space of possibility, disturbingly close to our present.
Tiroler Landestheater, Kammerspiele
Universitätsstraße 1, 6020 Innsbruck
Der Veranstaltungsort ist barrierefrei zugänglich.
Eine Anreise mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln ist möglich.
Vom Bahnhof Innsbruck sind es ca. 25 Minuten zu Fuß oder in ca. 10 Minuten mit dem Bus.
Parken: Congress Garage Innsbruck (Rennweg 3)
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