Anyone who goes to the opera from time to time knows that moment when you wonder whether you are really listening to what you are hearing – whether what is being sung on stage really is that men have to lead women, otherwise they „tend to step out of their sphere of activity“, as Sarastro says unchallenged in W.A. Mozart’s Magic Flute. Of course, operas are from „yesterday“ (or „the day before yesterday“) – they can easily be two, three or even four hundred years old. But in any case there are real people singing on stage to their audiences, presenting content from the past with great persuasive power as to its relevance to our here and now. In recent years, audiences have become more sensitive, not least because of the controversies about outdated racism, for example in Pippi Longstocking, Disney’s Jungle Book or the exoticising harem scenes in 19th century paintings.

„Let’s imagine that Verdi’s Otello was staged for an exclusively black audience. What would that do to us? In a pluralistic, multi-ethnic society, we should start thinking about an expanded audience.“ (Leyla Ercan)

A central aim of the Critical Classics initiative is to raise general awareness of discriminatory language in opera libretti and to use practical examples to stimulate a discussion on how to deal with their problematic content. The challenge is great, not least because opera classics now seem untouchable to many because of the great music they contain. However, at the time when The Magic Flute was written, it was common practice to freely change operas, for example to adapt them to local circumstances.

The initiative brings together a diverse team with a high-calibre from various disciplines for its editions. They include, for example, the internationally renowned conductor Julia Jones, who conducts The Magic Flute at the Vienna State Opera and the Royal Opera House in London, Aşkın-Hayat Doğan, who is now regarded as a reference for sensitivity reading in Germany, and the author Hartmut El Kurdi, who has been awarded the German Radio Play Prize for Children several times. The resulting editions are intended to provide theatres with quasi „barrier-free“ access to the necessary expertise. This also makes it possible to avoid having to re-examine standard repertoire operas for all possible „isms“ with every new production.

The Landesmusikrat NRW and Critical Classics have also agreed an official partnership.