Opera Lab Berlin is a hybrid music theater collective that brings together all parts of the creative chain - this interconnectedness forms the foundation of our work. Our artists come from a wide range of creative disciplines:musicians, actors, composers, directors, choreographers, set and costume designers, lighting designers, and dramaturgs. What unites us is a shared drive to create unique and boundary-pushing music theatre experiences.

We believe in equality between music and theatre, between sound and movement- elements that interact and merge to form a complete artistic expression.

Since our founding in 2013, we have staged over 30 independent productions, featuring works by more than 40 contemporary composers and over 18 directors. Our core ensemble has grown to over 30 members, while our extended network includes more than 100 highly skilled collaborators across disciplines. We build teams rooted in mutual trust and shared responsibility- spaces where experimentation, questions, and even conflict are welcome.Our goal is to create vivid, immediate experiences that resonate in real life. We search for moments of transformation - places where the language of contemporary music becomes physical, spatial, and alive.

Our most recent production YOU\ME/ALIEN, which premiered in February 2026, reflected this approach by bringing together musicians working across diverse musical traditions to explorehow sound can carry cultural identity and difference. The project looked at non-Western approaches to rhythm, voice, and musical structure alongside contemporary experimentalpractices, using the figure of the “alien” as a lens to examine processes of othering andbelonging.Our core ensemble has grown toover 30 members, while our extended network includes more than 100 highly skilled collaborators across disciplines. We build teams rooted in mutual trust and shared responsibility-spaces where experimentation, questions, and even conflict are welcome. Our goal is to create vivid, immediate experiences that resonate in real life. We search for moments of transformation-places where the language of contemporary music becomes physical, spatial, and alive.

In January 2025, A Guide to Self Synthesis explored the construction of identity through voice, movement, and technology. Featuring Marlene Bellissimo and Susan Stryker, the piece traced a personal journey of transformation—reshaping and reimagining the self through sound, choreography, and interactive performance.

‍¡Silencio, Por Favor! (May 2024) investigated the impossibility of true silence. Using works by John Cage and Cathy van Eck, alongside the analogue sound research of Marta Zapparoli, we explored how silence is filled with hidden frequencies, chance sounds, and shifting perception.

‍Echo 2050 (February 2024) envisioned an art world shaped by artificial intelligence. The performance staged a lively collision between human and machine creativity, confronting the future of authorship and emotion in a digital age.

‍Sales of a Deadman (2023) reimagined Death of a Salesman as a one-man opera critiquing the commodification of life and death in a capitalist society.

During the coronavirus pandemic, we developed new hybrid and digital formats. Ostravaganza took the form of a mockumentary on subversive GDR music, while Kreidler Conspiracy unfolded as a performative Advent calendar across Berlin and YouTube.

Our pop-opera project Who’s Afraid ofPop Culture? reached wide audiences with operatic covers of pop songs, amassing over half a million views.

Opera Lab Berlin continues to shape music theatre as a space for radical ideas, collaborative experimentation, and shared transformation.