Commissioned by the Munich Biennale, André Werner composed the opera The Jew of Malta, based on the drama by Christopher Marlowe written around 1590. Due to the fundamental idea of emphasizing the presence of the central character through the choreography and the stage’s resulting definition and transformation, the virtual stage topography and composition of the opera develop parallel to each other right from the first moment. To make the virtual topography able to be experienced as a reproduction of Machiavelli’s world, the virtual architecture is connected to the movements of the actor playing Machiavelli. When he moves forwards or backwards, the architecture does the same; if he turns, the architecture turns analogously.

The virtual architecture was, for the most part, generated on the basis of plant growing algorithms in real time. To make a quick change of costume possible and to achieve a consistency between the projected stage topography and the costumes, a process was developed to project the costumes onto the performers.

The stage setting and costumes of André Werner’s opera “Marlowe: The Jew of Malta" are created exclusively by interactive projections. The upshot is the overlapping of spaces and shifts of perspective that are the essence of the opera’s mis-en-scène.

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André Bernhardt (Austria), software and hardware developer, works freelance, his activities center on electronic image processing in media art.

ESG extended stage group

Andreas Kratky (Germany), media designer and artist, on the staff of the ZKM Karlsruhe, Institute for Visual Media, and the University of Karlsruhe.

Nils Krüger (Germany), (proyect leader): product design with digital media at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.

Bernd Lintermann (Germany), software developer and media artist; co-founder of the software company Greenworks, research assistant at the ZKM Karlsruhe, Institute for Visual Media.

Joachim Sauter (Germany), media designer and artist, (founding) member of ART+COM, professor for media design and art at the University of the Arts in Berlin and UCLA.

Jan Schroeder (Germany), stage and costume designer, works freelance for different theaters in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

André Werner (Germany), composer.