Season 21|22 ›NEIGHBOURS‹

Dear audience, dear friends of the MKO,

The last year has changed us: Our thinking and feeling, our professional lives, even our relationships. The discourses were too controversial, the changes too drastic, the effects on our everyday lives too varied. As much as we have become accustomed to a certain distance to our fellow humans, we now look at the gatherings of many people in a different light. Some of us rather with caution, even suspicion, some with a great need for nearness and a new levity.

We have decided to take a second look at the topic of ‘neighbours’ – not only to be able to catch up on some important performances that were prevented by the pandemic. But also because our view on our immediate surroundings, in which we spent so much time by force, has changed. And because such a drastic global crisis, the likes of which most of us have probably never experienced before, also allows – or rather demands – a new view on a topic, on our understanding of ourselves as bearers of culture and on the much-touted ‘relevance’ of our actions. When we started to deal with the term ‘neighbours’ and the music that accompanies it, the pandemic was not yet in our minds. Many programmes have changed completely, some works have gained a previously unimagined topicality or significance.

Many things will now be perceived differently and have different associations than they did two years ago.