Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold - an epic of gods and monsters - brought to the 21st century at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Das Rheingold
opera
The Hip Hop Orchestra Experience
Coming soon:
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In Oakland, the 28-piece Ensemble Mik Nawooj, led by Korean-born composer JooWan Kim, dismantles classical masters and rebuilds them as hip-hop.
Onstage, rappers trade rapid-fire bars over a chamber orchestra; a lyric soprano soars above French horns, while a turf dancer’s limbs cut sharp angles under a single spotlight. Kim repurposes Mozart’s "The Marriage of Figaro" and Bach’s “Contrapunctus," not as backdrop but as raw material, his Method Sampling turning counterpoint and canon into driving grooves.
The name Mik Nawooj is JooWan Kim spelled backward, a retrograde technique borrowed from the composers he dismantles. The performances arrive as both argument and celebration. Hip-hop, America's own indigenous art music, was always the answer waiting outside the door.
Cast & Crew
(Director), (Director), (Composer), (Conductor)