TURKISH POST-MIGRANT “OPERA” IN EUROPE: A SOCIO-HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON AURALITY

Abstract

In countries with a high level of urbanised multiculturalism and migration density, such as Netherlands and Germany, new forms of music theatre are emerging that include different communities and social groups. One such development is and music theatre produced for, by and with people from communities with a migration background.1Certainly, has a long tradition of representing the Turk (more precisely, Ottoman) and other related Eastern identities on stage, in so-called Turkenopern2 (or operas) mostly with exotic/Orientalist and racist undertones. The genre was often exercised to expose and, thereby, to reconfirm values. Musically, term a la Turca came to denote a wrong-note-style, bending or breaking established rules in classical music, thereby questioning those same values in listening experience. With presence of artists with an ethnically background in a second and third generation after arrival of guest worker generation, genre of Turkish opera is taking new forms, meanings and expressions, as well as audiences. Remarkably, this newly emerging body of work-which I describe as post-migrant after a successful coining by Shermin Langhoff3 in Berlin scene- represents first involvement that any of themselves have had with either content of Turkish opera or its production process. This causes us to question counteractive and, perhaps, self-orientalising tendencies of operatic past, tendencies which need historicising.Central to my argument is how music works as point of access to and vehicle of social history in these performances, negotiating socio-cultural issues, among others, of cultural memory, tradition and experience of modern subjectivity as constitutive of postmigrant identity in twenty-first century. Through adaptation of music theatre conventions such as those of opera, with its specific history in Western Europe, these performances are also produced for local audience members with help of more institutionalised music theatre ensembles and production houses. The production of these works often fulfil demand to be pedagogical and reflective of cultural diversity as well as engender cultural and political education in widest sense, involving larger audiences and generations. Therefore, historical contextualisation of this new trend needs to encompass a heterogeneous group of listeners in auditorium. This would need to take account of current individual listening experiences within a larger framework of emancipation processes of post-migration and multiculturality, which also necessitate a broader concept of aurality.I will be referring to two productions as illustrations of this trend, both produced in 2010: Lege Wieg / Bo§ Be§ik, produced by Korean composer Seung-Ah Oh and Dutch director Cilia Hogerzeil in Netherlands, and Tango Turk, produced by composer Sinem Altan (from Ankara) and Dutch director Lotte De Beer in Germany. The former is a new production in post-Wagnerian vein by a Dutch small-scale music theatre company in Dordrecht, Hollands Diep, in collaboration with VocaalLAB in Zaandam (both are production houses for experimental music theatre, subsidised by Netherlands Fund for Performing Arts, also known as NFPK+). The production came about after a series of workshops with and Dutch women from community in Dordrecht, who formed chorus in performance. The was staged at Het Energiehuis in Dordrecht, which is a former power plant on an old industrial site in city. The latter, on other hand, is a post-dramatic music (or even musical) theatre piece staged in Neukollner Oper in Berlin, which is situated in centre of a highly concentrated multicultural part of city. Both performances blur traditional boundaries between music theatre and today, whilst incorporating and European musical cultures. …