Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon? A contemporary practice of theatre, its genealogy and its potentiality. Lorenz Aggermann (Giessen) By analysing Heiner Goebbels ’ latest performance Everything that happened and would happen, the article shows the Singspiel to be a significantly transnational, even proto-European genre. Its structural characteristics reciprocally link today ’ s practice of performing arts with the practice from the second half of the 18th century. In both time periods, the Singspiel answers to the questions and problems of the aesthetic and political regime of the time, standing against rigid regulations more or less predefined by leading media and political paradigms. Through its vernacular, but also transnational practice, the genre opposes national and normalizing trends in theatre and the pernicious idea of instrumentalizing the performing arts as an identity-establishing tool. Today it fosters the advancement of art forms and aesthetic genres in a globalized and digitalized environment. ‘ Normal ’ Theatre At the end of the 18 th century, a specific mode of theatre crystallised in the Central European space, that is to say a certain form of production and distribution of the performing arts. Increasingly this became the ‘ role model ’ for theatre in the 19 th and 20 th century. Performing arts gradually changed from a courtly and commercial undertaking utilizing different medial means of expression to a representational instrument wielded by an increasingly more powerful bourgeoisie to spread its social and cultural values. Paradoxically, this mode of theatre refers to the aesthetic premise of autonomy of art, even though it goes along with the concentration, on both a national level and on stage, on language and the production of a canon and a political instrument. It is through this mode that theatre became a significant element in the process of nation and state building in Germany and some of its neighbouring countries. The Germanspeaking theatre maintained, however, this political orientation as an essential quality until the 20 th century, even after the end of the Second World War, when theatre - in its aesthetic practise as well as in its political public - became a strategic tool for the two competing German nations. The culmination of this mode is seen in ‘ director ’ s theatre ’ , linking guaranteed funding by the public sector to recourse to the predominant cultural canon. 1 These two determinants ultimately ensure a standardized form of production and distribution for the performing arts. While ‘ director ’ s theatre ’ articulates diverse political positions in terms of content, the mode ’ s normalizing and national calculus continues to have an almost unabated effect at the structural and institutional level, as is made clear by contemporary casting and training practise. 2 This prevalent mode of theatre, a monument of public spirit, dedicated to the true, the good, and the beautiful, 3 could be expected to be particularly reflected in the context of institutions such as school, prison and hospital which became the backbone of the nationally organized society in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. As an institution whose effects have an especially productive impact on the subject, rather than repressive, this Forum Modernes Theater, 31/ 1-2 (2020), 130 - 141. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.2357/ FMTh-2020-0012 can be attributed to what Michel Foucault calls a process of normalization and disciplining. 4 The involuntary effects of this normalization prevail and are particularly noticeable in the performing arts. They, among others, become evident in a virtually uniform architecture, which was almost completely drawn by a single architectural office (Hellmer and Fellner) in Central and Eastern Europe, in the disciplinary primacy that makes the declaimed word the dominant performance medium, and in the practice of rehearsal through which the principle of valuation and the principle of correction intertwine. 5 On the eve of the 21 st century, a theatre model has emerged that positions itself in opposition to this mode, disavowing, in a way, the national and normative tendencies. The foundation for this lies within a-disciplinary practices. While the ‘ normal ’ mode of theatre showcases language with respect to its theatricality, its contradictions and its limitations, a departure from the primacy of language and a stronger focus on the musicality of the represented and staged elements is apparent in performances of the other mode. Moreover, these performances do not present rehearsed or virtuoso elements. Rather, they test and question constitutive aesthetic components and mechanisms in the mode of play. Given that the new mode takes up an older practise of performing arts in many respects, it can be described using the familiar term Singspiel. Against the backdrop of this rough and rudimentary theatre-historical outline, consideration should be given to the following issues: which policies become operative and evident in the Singspiel, that is to say the abnormal and a-disciplinary performing arts mode? Why does it attract anew attention from both scientific and the artistic fronts? Does its timely relevance lie within its transnational and proto-European orientation? Singspiel The term Singspiel is used most commonly to describe the historic repertoire that was mainly performed by travelling troupes in the 18 th century and that was widely disseminated because of its pop cultural qualities like everyday content, direct speech, entertaining narration and memorable tunes, and not because of the dramaturgical composition of the fable. This specific, vernacular and musical form of theatre was introduced into the German-speaking cultural space as a novelty with the performance of Sydow ’ s Der Teufel ist los (1743) given by Schönemann ’ s troupe in Berlin. 6 It became the key initiator and innovator within the realm of theatre after the Seven Year ’ s War, 7 before it merged into the genre of opéra comique for the most part by the end of the 18 th century. Given that Singspiel, with the exception of a few compositions, was almost entirely left behind by 19 th century theatre practice, 8 it seems to be a phenomenon eminently bound by time and purpose and less of a generalized genre. Why return conceptually to such a form of performing arts, especially when both philological and musicological discussions do not provide a genre-constituting definition, 9 and literary studies choose to promote the bourgeois tragedy to paradigmatic status of this time? 10 From the 1990 s onwards, a loose constellation of equally hybrid and mobile forms appears to be using techniques similar to those of this defunct type of performing art. Although these centrally rely on music and singing to create a staging, they do not regard themselves as a form of opera and are not produced under the roof of this institution. Performances that make use of sonorous and musical register of the elements as opposed to prevailing, linguistic and dialogic dimension; performances that are fund on characteristic voices and bodies more 131 Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon? than on a virtuoso mastery of styles, music, and acting, in order to produce theatricality and musicality; performances, that draw on a repertoire of traditional images, gestures, texts and melodies and present them in a new way against the background of their historical context. Here, the works of Needcompany, Bak-Truppen, ZT Hollandia and, more recent works by Andcompany & Co., Fux, Bürk/ Sienknecht as well as performances by Christoph Marthaler and Heiner Goebbels, the most prominent representatives of this aesthetic, will be considered. Various aesthetic criteria suggest that these performances should be ascribed to the order of Singspiel. These point out the structural characteristics that reciprocally link today ’ s practice of performing arts with the practice from the second half of the 18 th century. In both time periods, the Singspiel can be read as a form that constantly articulates new answers to aesthetic questions and problems as well as to sociopolitical questions and problems of the time by using significantly high cultural input, thus an archive, and processing it through sampling and in different contexts. Set before the formation of clearly distinguished paths for the production, distribution and reception of music and straight theatre, Singspiel launches an intermedially versed, pop culturally informed and predominantly humorous play, which creates a strong innovative force that effectively changes the realm of theatre. Singspiel gradually led to the disciplining and professionalization of the performing arts, which started at the end of the 18 th century, due to its hybrid playful modes and diverse scope. Although - according to Johann Gottlieb Stephanie der Jüngere, one of the most famous and successful librettists of this repertoire - “ mediocre singing, accompanied well, will always be more appreciated than the most wonderful throat with stiffness and discomfort of the body, ” a singer must, “ once the singing has ended, still be able to speak and know how to accompany his dialogue. “ 11 The composition of Singspiel proves itself as a significantly transnational, even proto-European bricolage. Within this Singspiel refers to its own genealogy, to its confinement to history. Its foundations extend over cultural regions and national bordes - nevertheless Singspiel is strongly bound to central european space. The narrative basis is mainly founded on different plots taken from Italian opera buffa, French opéra comique and from English ballad opera. These were Germanized and adapted by travelling troupes and distributed across the country and social classes. Singspiel opposes the pernicious idea of instrumentalizing the performing arts as identityestablishing tool for the reunification of the German nation through a vernacular, but also transnational practice. This practice enables the translation and adaptation of foreign storylines and themes into the target culture, at the same time as it helps to establish an educational canon while still allowing for mutual assimilation of certain civil and courtly orders of values. 12 Through this adaptation, Singspiel, which differs from bourgeois tragedies that exclusively addressed a specific social class, 13 was predestined for the mass entertainment of a heterogeneous audience. After the Seven Year ’ s War, Singspiel was mainly performed in small and medium-sized court theatres because performances by foreign opera troupes were rarely able to be financed. This provided access to elaborate and contemporary stage machinery so that technical equipment and elements gained distinction in the dramaturgy of the Singspiel. These structural and dramaturgical peculiarities form noticeable parallels with contemporary performance practice. At present, larger numbers of smaller companies travel from city to city with mobile performance formats composed in different 132 Lorenz Aggermann languages and usually with vernacular surtitles. Out of preference, they adopt all available technical and medial means and they are regarded as important innovators in the realm of theatre given their abnormal and non-disciplinary modes of productions and distribution. Meanwhile, from the political side there is pressure to increasely integrate this kind of production into the institution of the municipal theatre, thereby transforming the ‘ normal ’ theatre. These performances often view themselves as developing new works or as using an open format in which all theatrical means of expression and all medial forms of representation are used equally, with the result that the performance is occasionally simply a channel for distribution (especially in Heiner Goebbels ’ œ uvre). The creative process is not reflected in the rehearsals but in the performance (such as performances by Gruppe Fux show). They follow the processes of hybridisation and of sampling from a dramaturgical perspective as well as from an institutional perspective. This would be unthinkable without the link to high culture models, dramas, operas (such as stagings by Christoph Marthaler), and pop songs and ballads (such as works by Clemens Sienknecht and Barbara Bürk). They seize upon current socio-political debates and topics and add a new playful framework to these (as we see in examples of works by Andcompany & Co). Through the interaction of their protagonists (as in the case of Needcompany), they significantly challenge the prevailing ‘ director ’ s theatre ’ that draws on canonized texts and virtuoso interpretations by actors. They are based on elements that seem to stage and compose themselves without any author forming them (as in the case of Heiner Goebbels). Even though their confinement to Europe, its discourses, topoi and venues, is not anylonger their main characteristic in a globalized world, these performances still follow the same dramaturgy, the same aesthetical tradition, that favors first and foremost the abnormal. They count essentially on a non-uniformly trained type of actress or actor who cannot be assigned to a profession - musician, actor, dancer - but to the play, which is not based on discipline and training but on incalculable and non-standardized singularity. 14 ‘ Diversity in unity ’ , the maxim of the European Union, gives a concise definiton of this contemporary performance practice. Works by the groups and people mentioned above demonstrate that performing arts currently reposition themselves in light of socio-politics. Like those from the late 18 th century, these approach situations of upheaval explicitly by making scenic capital out of it. They are political in a way that is visible at content-related and structural levels. For one thing, they embrace reassessing the prevalent canon of performing arts and drama. At the same time, using their abnormal, a-disciplinary modes of production and distribution, they criticize and transform the realm of theatre from which they come. It is now proposed to define these as Singspiel. Singspiel should not be defined as a dramatic genre or a norm but the term should be used to indicate a specifically hybrid and transnational quality, the opening up of theatrical aesthetics and its selfreflective, critical and transformative potential. This definition likewise allows to answer the question, how to transform diversity into aesthetic unities? The composition of Singspiel is based on a “ disjunctive synthesis ” from a dramaturgical point of view. 15 Various elements and moments in the dramatic plot get connected, although they resist certain action necessary for this nexus. Music, language and movement do not converge with an eye toward the narrative or to a synthetic overall impression. Instead, the performance positions itself above the play with differences in order to get down to the core of the staging. By 133 Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon? maintaining distance from or occasionally resetting the action, questions of a chosen means of expression and of its theatrical and/ or musical quality gain urgency. The elements of the scene are not staged with respect to their narrative necessity but in light of their visual appeal or their sound potential. Sound and the methods used to produce music, create immensely theatrical moments, on the one hand. Strong theatrical procedures consistently display their musicality, on the other hand. Such “ inter-art movements ” 16 motivate the dramatic plot. Singspiel focuses particularly on them. Intrinsic musicality and theatricality of staged elements, which is often not recognized, evoke fascination for and interest in elements that are shown and disclosed and which stand apart from linguistic understanding or conflictual drama. Time and again, use of sounds, images and movements, and more specifically, preparation and dissemination of these through technical instruments, ensure a ‘ solution ’ for maintaining the events. Ultimately, the release from potentials of play is at stake in opposition to an oppressive superiority of the dramatic content. 17 The conceptualization of Singspiel proposed in this paper, aligns closely with Walter Benjamin ’ s definition, given in his study on the Origins of German baroque tragedy. Benjamin proposes an unconventional, abnormal approach to history, ore more precise: to the genealogy of theatre genres. He does not plead for consciousness and transparency of historical tradition, but emphasizes the idea, that genealogical threads foremost appear in the mode of play. For Benjamin, play is a main driver for aesthetics and their development. Hence Benjamin seizes on the literal translation of tragedy as ‘ mourning-play ’ , stressing the second term, play, above all. In order to follow the “ developement of the play-element ” 18 , Benjamin draws attention to reflection as an essential dramaturgical and aesthetic mechanism: “ The technique is not always transparent, as when the stage itself is set up on the stage, or the auditorium is extended to the stage area. And yet for theater [. . .] the power of salvation and redemption only ever lies in this paradoxical reflection of play and appearance. “ 19 Herein, lies the critical and political quality of this formation. Singspiel uses various expressions and media to open the stage on the stage, even more so than tragedy, in order to reach reflection that becomes self-reflection in the context of stage. In this disjunctive alignment, it questions the specific characteristics of its elements and forms - specifics of music, of singing, of image, of movement and of speech (of dialogue) and of other elements - and explores possible representation modes. It is not necessarily concerned with gathering new forms but new archival material and their scenic function is guaranteed by theatrical tradition. Singspiel is characterized by the consultation of familiar, sometimes pop cultural elements like vaudeville or song, or famous characters, jokes and dialogues. Through its formation “ within forms that are already more or less in operation and underway ” 20 , Singpiel pursues the reflection of the dramatic plot, and makes its paneuropean genealogy productive. This is true for Singspiel in Mozart ’ s time, at the end of the 18 th century, and for the Singspiel works designed by Heiner Goebbels beginning in the middle of the 1990 s and which has been performed with great medial variety right up to the present. Europeras, Europeana and Euronews What does contemporary Singspiel look like and how can one determine its political orientation? Heiner Goebbels ’ recent performance Everything that happened and would happen, which premiered on October 134 Lorenz Aggermann 10, 2018 at Mayfield Depot, Manchester, shows the political framework of contemporary Singspiel. The composition ’ s foundation consists of various archives from which basic materials and elements are distilled. They determine not only content but also the mode of play. Firstly, there is a container with brochures and props designed by Klaus Grünberg for a performance of John Cage ’ s Europeras 1 & 2, directed by Heiner Goebbels at the Ruhrtriennale 2012. Second, there is as a possible linguistic extension of material in the form of Patrik Ou ř edník ’ s Europeana - A Brief History of the Twentieth Century. Third, for visual and medial reference, there are sequences from the program “ No Comment ” by the news network Euronews. These three forms of archives serve as basis for a composition that covers scene and music. This was developed in four workshops in Hanoi, Essen, Paris, and Manchester with ten musicians and dancers respectively, as well as with unidentified volunteers. Goebbels ’ usual mode of production and rehearsal during these workshops, is to confront potential protagonists and players with material and to invite them explore their own approach with the chosen archival materials and, above all, with their scenic and/ or musical skills. The staff responsible for lighting, video, sound, dramaturgy and staging, as well as Heiner Goebbels himself, begin to participate in this play at the same time, before certain acquired sequences, moments, images and sounds are made into scenes and then into a sequence lasting for almost three hours. What can be taken from this? How does it work? What does this play show? Loosely speaking, in the course of performance, tableaux are made from available props. They transfer space, and hence, immediate surroundings of the audience. The composition clearly flirts with the idea of the immersive without abandoning classic division of skene and koilon. While activities to transform are strongly choreographed and further images are projected onto teaser and setting, it is never clear whether tableaux are object of play or whether they are an incidental result of scenic events. The same applies to those transformations, that have impact on the whole space. Occasionally, spectators believe to recognize a familiar portrait, a film scene or a historic scenery. Then the performance space, Mayfield Depot, stands out in its materiality and technical means as neither space nor scene. For example, light and lamps are exposed as realia. The same happens on a musical level. The majority of sound derives from conducted activities and is further enriched with electronic processing. The music does not necessarily favour a melody but creates a soundscape in analogy to the scene. Its subjects and objects occur individually and are evocative of things already heard but their origins remain unclear. It cannot be firmly ascertained, whether sound is heard autonomously, ornamentally, as a result of events or as a part of space of Mayfield Depot. Materials from the above mentioned archives are interwoven into these actions and their on-going transformation. Extracts from Patrik Ou ř edníks Europeana are read in the meantime, or displayed as texts and contradict permanent progress on stage through stupendous counting of what has already been achieved. Important technical inventions, marginal socio-political developments and the manifold horrors of both world wars come up for discussion in a malicious enumeration. Actual news images from Euronews enter the process of permanent transformation. However, they appear less real in this arrangement and more composed and arranged in a highly individual way. Here, a more than curious effect is felt. Do they belong to the archive, that is to say to everything that has already happened, 135 Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon? or to things that are in an emergent state? In the programme, Heiner Goebbels firmly advises against a detailed interpretation of what can be perceived here: Everything that happened and would happen doesn ’ t participate in all the attempts to have yet another opinion as to the meaning of what has happened; quite the opposite. Guided by a deep mistrust in the transmission of a one-directional massage, I don ’ t even try. Everything that happened and would happen seeks to open up a space of images, words and sounds generous enough to avoid the impression that somebody on stage is trying to tell you what to think. It is a space for imagination and reflection, in which the construction of sense is left for everyone to assemble. 21 This aesthetic approach is based on a political bearing inspired by Hanns Eisler. According to musicologist Amila Ramovic, Goebbels, as composer, takes over responsibility for material and for performers: “ The chosen historical and newly invented elements are not set into work by magisterial procedures like appropriation, transformation or interpretation, they are nor revaluated nor recontextualised. Every element is handeled with a clear identity, as the-thing-in-itself. ” 22 Therefore, Ramovic describes Goebbels compositions as anti-authoritarian creations, 23 a definition, that, perhaps very heavily, emphasizes the general power structure effective in performing arts. Even the singular effect of realistic news images cannot be described, even though images certainly revolt against something. It is important to note that staged elements and used images are to be found between two orders that concern their temporality (past? present? future? ) as well as their ontological status. Are the images real? Are they fictional? Are they authentic or staged? It is this vagueness, that raises the question about the normality of these new, mediatized elements. The contemporary process of normalization is mainly determined by digital technologies and their concomitant mediascape. The play, Goebbels launches in Everything that happened and would happen not only provides self reflection and critique of performing arts. It postulates a both profound and playful reflection of the usage and perception of oldfashioned and brand new media, and their postulate for a new ‘ normal ’ . In his lectures on post-popular aesthetics, Diederich Diederichsen indicates that because of omnipresent possibilities of reproducing and distributing everything digitally in contemporary art, certain qualities are underscored. Less emphasis is placed on artistic and fictional characters and on framing of the archive, but on those traces of the real world that appear within. Technical means are especially used and interpreted in view of their indexed impact. They are not implicitly used for the production of abstracted, symbolic signs but particularly for the transfer of realia. 24 New technical means make handling and utilization of things accessible to art. This thesis inevitably generates contradiction from a reception-aesthetic side. Jonathan Crary, for example, clearly shows that “ what seems to constitute a domain of the visual is an effect of other kinds of forces and relations of power “ 25 and is therefore inevitably linked to its staging. Diedrichsen seems to be aware of this objection. In his argumentation, he emphasizes the production-aesthetic side and talks of an effect too. New media suggest the possibility “ to dissolve the medium and not to be sign, but thething-in-itself. “ 26 The superficial explanation of fiction and imagination in classical disciplinary arts confronts focus on factuality and authenticity in post-disciplinary and post-popular aesthetics. While the former works towards distance and perspectivation, elements of the latter come too close in many ways. The question on how to deal with this closeness, which emerges particularly affec- 136 Lorenz Aggermann tively, involuntarily links aesthetics with politics. Images presented by news or other portals direct this closeness, affects, and transform it into a subjective and intentional emotion. 27 But what if this step is skipped and the represented is not immediately interpreted? Goebbels Singspiel focuses the inevitable fact, that medial means never ever transmit realia or ‘ the-thing-in-itself ’ . They automatically undergoe a process of staging, of orchestration, someone or rarely something (like the I Ching or an algorithm) directs. They have both a shaped entrance and fadeout. 28 This goes for oldfashioned media like books, but also for new forms like webcams, and even for more complex media-clusters like archives. Their staging or orchestration, it might be hidden, non-subjective or digitally generated, is an essential condition for their appearance and usage. Therefore an awareness of processes of (aesthetical) shaping and their (hidden) techniques are of great importance today. As play, Everything that happened and would happen is not limited to reflection of this (hidden) shaping. In performance strong emotional effects come to the fore, effects, that have their starting point exactely in the illusory aesthetic assertion, that there might be no shaping at all. The various archives, used by Goebbels, follow this gamble of postpopular aesthetics and let - with definite ironic verve - things speak for themselves. They play with the idea to explicitly transmit realia. Patrik Ou ř edník draws firmly on a non-literary form and paraphrases the style of medieval chronicles. His Short History consists solely of a list of facts. John Cage also resorts to existing operas and gives additional compositional decisions regarding the Chinese oracle I Ching. The images of Euronews program “ No comments ” refrain from any commentary on frame and content. The strategy of aesthetics based on index, here Diederichsen ’ s considerations adapt exceptionally well to Everything that happened and would happen, is subjected to dialectics: “ The more realistic the picture, the more broadly it has to be explained: beginning with simple information regarding its creation, its symbolic formation and its artistic framing and adaptation. That ’ s the dialectic of the indexical: it bawls out of reality, but it doesn ’ t mean anything. ” 29 Goebbels ’ Singspiel is decisively based on this aesthetical dialectics. He accepts its hypothetical premise as challenge and embeds archival material and realia in the performance, even more, he involves ‘ thething-in-itself ’ in a permanent process of restaging. The aesthetic effect, it might be assumed, comes from acting-out its fundamental paradox: No medially transmitted thing speaks for itself. On the contrary, an index effect can only occur due to staging - a process, that allows to abstract from the original time and space of production, from the ‘ construction-site ’ of the image, the sound, the word. 30 The archival material used intentionally is also strongly shaped and staged, and bears a particular perspectivation. Just like Cage ’ s Europeras were planned and designed in response to the hegemony of European cultural and music history, Euronews reacts to the supremacy of American news images with a European perspective - two political concerns. The distilled elements do not stand for themselves but are decidedly directed against something. They have a genealogy and are intentionally aligned and deliberately formed in many ways. The chosen aesthetic strategy, impressively shown in Everything that happened and would happen, is able to examine critically the author ’ s original intention and to disguise it - but the author ’ s position and, as a consequence thereof, the process of shaping cannot be ultimately overcome. 31 Against the background of Singspiel, the handling of material in Everything that 137 Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon? happened and would happen can be described as critically reflective and political. The manner, in which Goebbels stages individual processes and elements with and against each other, causes their mutual and individual reflection. He allows elements to oscillate between their status as object and subject, as the-thing-in-itself or as a means to an end. Occasionally it seems as if scenic elements decide how to appear within the frame of the stage, how to be perceived. Occasionally, it is the other way around, as if elements emerge through technical transformation, through lightning, intensification, in short, through staging. However, further interpretation of the shown actions and their transformation from affect into emotion, does not happen. In consequence, the play allows its elements to come very close to the audience. Sometimes it is too close and the audience has to endure this attraction without further explanation. Everything that happened and would happen conveys a new vision of (self)reflexive aesthetics, of Singspiel in general. It sets an potential impact on real life, opposing the performance, into play. Everything that happened and would happen ventures to play with its scope: the location of the show represents a forth form of archive. The world premiere was not located at a representative building in the middle of the city of Manchester, but at an industrial ruin, at Mayfield Depot. Likewise here, the thing-in-itself is set into play. The dark and disused railway station had to be adapted. Everything that happened and would happen not only deploys available stagecraft but introduces technical instruments and machinery in the (post-)industrial environment. The historical site, characterized by economic production and distribution, was transformed into a theatre and gained unreal, fictional or contingent qualities. Corresponding the play, the buildings seem as if they had always belonged to the imaginative and aesthetic order, as if they had always been ‘ scenery ’ . At the same time, the venue does preparatory work for index-effect. Because it not only suggests its status as part of reality, it also avouches realia in the form of stones and walls and reflects the fictive play therein in its physic and factitious presence. The location is a ruin, a construction site and a stage at the same time, and the play in its innards seems to center on this disparity, inherent to all archival material. Everything that happened and would happen makes use of various qualities of archival material, its staging emphasises its semiotic aspect and its indexical impact. The real, material, not only constitutes (architectonic) frame or dramaturgical base of the play, but also recurs in its core, within the scenes, for example in form of artificial stones and pedestals, that are rolled across the stage and whose choreography is a central part of the show. They are clearly distinguishable as artificial stones and foundations, but as props they entail an indexical quality, they are material testimonies of another time, of a different work (Cage ’ s Europeas). The show does not end on the improvised stage but on a ramp, leading from a construction site whereupon the audience encounters headlights, teasers, stagehands and other elements at different positions. It ends with a view over the nocturnal silhouette of Manchester. Goebbels ’ play goes distinctly beyond the above-mentioned outlined frame and the historical space of Singspiel. It entertains the idea of baroque theatrum mundi. Does that indicate, Singspiel today becomes a globalized phenomenon? The performance turns out to be an outstanding example for the critically reflective calculation of Singspiel as it plays with potential, impact and contradictions of an index-effect. In dealing with available material politically, contemporary mediabased heterogeneity can be achieved aesthetically productive, although it usually cannot 138 Lorenz Aggermann be controlled by a singular artist. 32 By showing the index-effect as result of staging, it offers criticism against media-related hyperpresence and emotionalisation. Even in the realm of theatre in the 18 th century and at the end of the 20 th century, Singspiel can be read as a formation that gives an answer to the questions and problems of the aesthetic and political regime of the time, in a mode of criticism, standing against rigid regulations more or less predefined by leading media and institutions. At both times, the patchwork of sources, an archive, provides basis of this critical practice whereupon various strategies of citation, copying, and staging take effect. Sourrounded by ever changing contexts, scenic elements become involved in a permanent adaptation. Thus Singspiel contrives enrichment and depletion and, in addition, transformation of used archival material. It voices criticism on prevailing and canonized stylistic device and media and provides sustainable innovations in performing arts. The potential of the abnormal Due to this self-reflective and critical aesthetics Singspiel, both in its historic and its contemporary form, can be turned in a playful and impressive critcism of aesthetic and technological means, of media of all kinds, and their use in already existing and upcoming formations. While historical Singspiel answers to differentiation of art and art genres in the 18 th century, its contemporary version tries to set new technological means and media into play. Both have in common, that they reclaim the status of performing arts and the potential of play in a newly constellated aesthetic regime. Singspiel therefore gives insight in the development of aesthetic genres and media discourses. And, not forgotten, in their differences. Within this aesthetical self-reflection, Singspiel strongly refers to its own genealogy, to its confinement to history and to cultural regions, and its self-reflection becomes a mode of self-determination. Is this hypostasis of self-reflection and criticism a proto-european quality? At this point the process of normalization is once again worthy of consideration. In most of the European countries normalization - the very essence of power according to Foucault - is closely linked to nationand state building. Normalization and its effects have a strong national shaping, which becomes quite evident in the arts, as mentioned on the example of German drama and ‘ director ’ s theatre ’ . Although clearing the path for a ‘ normal ’ and national drama, Singspiel brings mainly abnormal and hybrid qualities into play and points to an alternative. The more or less urgent need for alternatives within rigid aesthetical regimes (that are devoted to the idea of a nation) might be the main reason for its dissappearance and for its return, centuries later. Singspiel itself is not a norm according to dramatic forms or art genres. It is a mode of play, that evokes self-reflective, critical and transformative potentials of aesthetic means of all kinds. And it shows ways, how diversity can be made productive, can be handeled in (aesthetic) unities. Today, normalization is mainly determined by digital technologies, and it seems as if the omnipresent mediascape is globalized, and not any longer protoeuropean or bound to other regions - a fallacy. The contemporary Singspiel, Goebbels enfolds, is not only playing with the dialectics of an universallly applicable indexeffect. In the exposure of the shaping of media, of their staging, a genealogy becomes evident, or at least strategics and considerations underneath, that inevitably point at a specific cultural environment. Two thought provoking propositions and subsequent questions might end these remarks on Singspiel, its genealogy and its 139 Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon? potentiality: Like the abnormal, “ while logically second, is existentially first, ” 33 globalized phenomena, while logically omnipresent, are always situated in locatable scenes. This fact, presented by Everything that happened and would happen in exemplary manner, is not only protoypical for the contemporary, but for Singspiel in general. Singspiele and their aesthetical principles are still strongly based on european traditions. But maybe the question european or not is less of a central role, compared to a more urgent one, raised by Singspiel, in working with the difference of incalculable and non-standardized elements: Is a paradoxical ‘ abnormal way of normalization ’ possible? And according to this question, another mode of power, “ that is integrated in the play [. . .], a power, that posseses within itself the principles of transformation and innovation? ” 34 Singspiele are definitely a pretty European form of syncretism in performing arts, a syncretism, that can easily be found in nearly any interdisciplinary or interartistic practice. 35 What goes beyond is their potential for self reflection and self-determination. Singspiele, and their peculiar mode of production are an example for this abnormal mode of power. Their potential for innovation lies foremost therein. Due to their strong affection for the abnormal, Singspiele prove to be a paradigmatic and critical practise, an uncontrollable safety hazard 36 in the aesthetic regime of the time - wherever they are produced and performed. Notes 1 Christopher Balme, “ Stadt-Theater: Eine deutsche Heterotopie zwischen Provinz und Metropole ” , in: Burcu Dogramaci (ed.), Großstadt. Motor der Künste in der Moderne. Berlin 2010, pp. 61 - 76 2 Friedemann Kreuder, “ Theater zwischen Reproduktion und Transgression körperbasierter Humandifferenzierungen “ , in: Stefan Hirschauer (ed.), Un/ Doing Differences. Praktiken der Humandifferenzierung, Weilerswist 2017, pp. 234 - 258. 3 So the friezes on Stadttheater Giessen and on Alte Oper Frankfurt. 4 Michel Foucault, Abnormal. Lectures at the Collège de France 1974 - 1975, trans. by Graham Burchell, London, New York 2003. Michel Foucault, Discipline and punish. The birth of the prison, trans. by Alan Sheridan, New York 1995. 5 The regeneration of valuation and corrections is the fundament of every normalization: “ In any case [. . .] the norm brings with it a principle of both qualification and correction. The norm's function is not to exclude and reject. Rather, it is always linked to a positive technique of intervention and transformation. ” Foucault, Abnormal, p. 50. See further: Annemarie Matzke, Arbeit am Theater. Eine Diskursgeschichte der Probe, Bielefeld 2012, p. 143 ff. 6 Christina Urchueguía, Allerliebste Ungeheuer. Das deutsche komische Singspiel 1760 - 1790, Frankfurt a. M./ Basel 2015, p. 77. Der Teufel ist los as prototype of Singspiel. The performance was not designed as a version of the Italian opera by musicians but by actors on a completely different dramaturgical and institutional premise. 7 Jörg Krämer, Deutschsprachiges Musiktheater im 18. Jahrhundert, Tübingen 1998, p. 60. 8 Urchueguía, Allerliebste Ungeheuer, p. 12. 9 Notations vary, then as now. Besides Melo-, Monoor Duodrama, also deutsche komische Oper, musikalisches Lustspiel, Schauspiel mit Gesang, Operette. 10 Peter Szondi, Die Theorie des bürgerlichen Trauerspiels im 18. Jahrhundert. Der Kaufmann, der Hausvater und der Hofmeister, Frankfurt a. M. 1973, p. 15. 11 “ Ein mittelmäßiger Gesang, von gutem Spiele begleitet, wird immer mehr Anwerth finden als die herrlichste Kehle mit Steifheit und Unbehaglichkeit des Körpers vergesellschaftet. ” Und: “ Ein Sänger muß, wenn der Gesang vorbei ist, auch sprechen können, und seinen Dialog mit dem gehörigen 140 Lorenz Aggermann Spiele zu begleiten wissen. ” Johann Gottlieb Stephanie der Jüngere, “ Vorrede ” (1792), in: Renate Schusky (ed): Das deutsche Singspiel im 18. Jahrhundert. Quellen und Zeugnisse zu Ästhetik und Rezeption. Wuppertal 1980, pp. 91 - 97, here p. 92. 12 Krämer, Deutschsprachiges Musiktheater im 18. Jahrhundert, p. 36. 13 Due to its (idealistic) emancipatory impetus, German bourgeois tragedy of the 18 th century and its accompanying philosophical discourse, is mainly directed at a bourgeois audience. Considered as an educative and selective genre, its impact turned out to be more important in the literary than in the social field. 14 Gerald Siegmund, “ Zwischen Repräsentation und Partizipation. Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage des Theaters ” , in: WestEnd - Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 14/ 2 (2017), pp. 27 - 52, here p. 42. 15 Armin Schäfer, Bettine Menke and Daniel Eschkötter, “ Das Melodram. Ein Medienbastard. Einleitung ” , in: Das Melodram. Ein Medienbastard, Berlin 2011, pp. 7 - 18, here p. 8. 16 David Roesner, Musicality in Theatre. Music as a Model, Method and Metaphor in Theatre-Making, Farnham 2014, p. 9. 17 Bettine Menke and Christoph Menke, “ Tragödie, Trauerspiel, Spektakel. Die drei Weisen des Theatralen ” , in: Bettine Menke and Christoph Menke (eds.), Tragödie, Trauerspiel, Spektakel. Berlin 2007, pp. 6 - 16, here p. 7. 18 Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama. trans. by John Osborne, London, New York 2009, p. 83 19 Ibid., p. 82. 20 Judith Butler, “ What is Critique? An Essay on Foucault ’ s Virtue, ” in: David Ingram (ed.) The Political. (Oxford, Malden 2002), pp. 212 - 228, here p. 226 21 Programme, n. p. 22 “ Sowohl die aus der Geschichte gewählten als auch die neu erschaffenen Materialien kommen nicht ins Werk durch irgendwelche autoritativen Prozeduren wie Aneignung, Transformation oder Interpretation, und sie werden nicht aufgewertet oder rekontextualisiert. Jedes von ihnen wird als Ding ‘ an sich ’ behandelt, mit einer klaren Identität. ” Amila Ramovic´, “ Die Po/ Ethik von Heiner Goebbels Dinge ” , in: Ulrich Tadday (ed.), Heiner Goebbels, München 2018, pp. 81 - 101, here p. 91. 23 Ibid. p. 89. 24 Diederich Diederichsen, Körpertreffer. Zur Ästhetik der nachpopulären Künste. Frankfurter Adorno Vorlesungen. Berlin 2017, p. 9 f. 25 Jonathan Crary, Suspension of Perception. Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture, Massachusetts 2001, p. 14. 26 “ sich als Medium aufzuheben, und nicht mehr Zeichen, sondern die Sache selbst zu sein. ” Diederichsen, Körpertreffer, p. 14. 27 For this transfer from affect to emotion in performing arts see: Lorenz Aggermann, Der offene Mund. Über ein zentrales Phänomen des Pathischen, Berlin 2013, p. 234 ff. 28 For Ulf Otto all media inherit theatrical traits. In consequence his study Internetauftritte contains a theatre-history of new media - so the title. (Bielefeld 2013). 29 “ Je wirklicher das Bild, desto mehr bedarf es einer Erklärung im weiteren Sinne: von der simplen Info über seine Entstehungsbedingung bis zur symbolischen oder künstlerischen Rahmung und Bearbeitung. Das ist die Dialektik des Index: er brüllt aus der Wirklichkeit, sagt aber ersteinmal nichts. ” Diederichsen, Körpertreffer, p. 19. 30 Ibid., p. 45. 31 A dilemma found not only in Cage ’ s Europeras but also in Goebbels ’ scores, for example in Schwarz auf Weiß (München: Ricordi 1997) wherein the composer tries to relativize himself in his function by writing long notes on the musical text and on the staging. 32 Diederichsen, Körpertreffer, p. 20. 33 See Georges Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological, trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett, New York 2007, p. 243. 34 Foucault, Abnormal, p. 52. 35 See Patrice Pavis, “ Intercultural Theatre today ” , in: Forum Modenes Theater, 25/ 1 (2010), pp. 5 - 15, here p. 14. 36 Urchueguía, Allerliebste Ungeheuer, S. 82. 141 Singspiel - A Proto-European Phenomenon?