Gisela Weimann OPERA FOR 4 BUSES
An Imaginary Journey Through Europe
premiered on the Museumsinsel in Berlin in the frame of the project "Goetterleuchten".
Idea, concept, costumes, direction: Gisela Weimann
Composers and soloists:
Georg Katzer, Patrick Kosk, Melvyn Poore,
Friedrich Schenker, Michael Wertmüller,
Alexi Haapaniemi, Robin Hayward,
Mitch Heinrich, Philippe Micol, Olav Rupp
Photos: Susanne Ahner, Patrick Kosk, Gisela Weimann
In 2001, the "Opera for 4 Buses" was premiered in front of the 'Altes Museum' in Berlin as part of the Museum Island festival
"Götterleuchten" (Glow of the Gods).
This initial journey involved four mirrored city buses and a team comprising composers and soloists from Germany,
England, Finland, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland, alongside BVG bus drivers. The costume designer
was from Lithuania, the hat maker from Berlin, and the lighting designer from Romania. Sound engineering was handled
by Manfred Fox, while master glazier Carola Tillein oversaw the fabrication and secure installation of the mirror elements.
The project continued until 2004 as an "opera on the move," featuring a changing cast of performers.
A familiar everyday situation—the city bus ride—was transformed into a novel visual and acoustic experience. Usually
a purely functional activity, the journey became an artistic event within this "opera house on wheels." Even those who
remained mere curious passersby saw and heard unusual things and, by virtue of their own reflections, automatically
became participants in the performance.
The opera, structured in four acts, took place inside four decommissioned Berlin city buses.
Adorned with mirror-element ornamentation—both inside and out—and illuminated to create specific moods, the buses
were transformed into visually striking art objects. Inside, an unreal spatial atmosphere emerged
from the interplay of mutually reflecting mirror strips that alternated with strips of transparent window glass.
This effect was further heightened by the soloists' mirrored props and costumes. The myriad reflections and mirror images
mingled with real-world scenes from outside, effectively incorporating the external environment into the stage space itself.
An act representing a specific country through music was performed on each bus. The audience journeyed across Europe,
moving from one bus to the next, with the buses' stops and transfer points serving as part of the staging. The opera did
not follow a narrative plot; instead, it evolved through an interplay of impressions and sensations evoked by noises, sounds,
melodies, colors, and shapes. A sense of time and space was lost, the boundaries between life and art blurred, and a
dialogue emerged—between reality and dreams, and between the inner and outer worlds.
The scale of this project—which involved artists from various disciplines and national backgrounds, partners from diverse
sectors of society, the surrounding urban environment, chance passersby, and the audience itself—could not have been
realized without public funding, corporate sponsorship, and extensive technical support. Yet, precisely because of this,
the "Opera for 4 Buses" initiated a social and cultural learning process for everyone involved.
