Musical Flashmobs – does Public Space still works as a stage?

Abstract

This essay discusses the crisis of the lack of young audiences in classical music, especially music theatre, and provides an overview of projects outside the municipal and state theatres. Based on open-air concerts, musical flashmobs will be presented, the aim of which is to address passers-by purely by chance. The investigation of the repertoire will reveal a canon formation that is connected with acoustic advantages when playing in public space. Arias from the opera La Traviata or Ravel's Bolero, for example, are particularly effective in quickly attracting the attention of crowds. After a historical classification of the flashmob as a phenomenon of digital mobilization, its current crisis will be discussed in connection with its commercialization and the performance situation will be compared with the original idea of the flash mob. With the announcement of flashmob, there are no more unprepared passers-by, but spectators who expect the announced moment with the mobile phone camera. The concept of flashmob already seems outdated, but the concept behind it remains a strategy of searching for missing audiences in everyday urban life. While the flashmob chooses main stations to reach as many passers-by as possible, projects such as the Opera for the Homeless, La Bohème in a Skyscraper or Eichbaum Opera turn the station into a passage for cultural and social diversity. The essay discusses the advantages and disadvantages of such projects and focuses on intercultural audience developments as well as on the staging strategies of Youtube videos, the recipients of which are addressed by flashmobs.