About the work
VOX HUMANA. Ein Singspiel is a contemporary music-theatre project that opened the Neuköllner Oper's 2026 season. It was created with the ensemble Opera Aperta, a group of Ukrainian artists living and working under the threat of Russia's war of aggression. Roman Grygoriv is responsible for composition and musical direction, and Illia Razumeiko for text, theory and space. The piece deliberately shifts between a workshop for extended vocal techniques, a techno ritual, a lecture on performance theory and post-documentary theatre.
Plot
Its starting point is the question of what can be done with the human voice: singing, speaking, praying, healing, protesting. In a heightened framing narrative, the Ukrainian artists decide to give Germany the best thing they have — their voices — in gratitude for its political and military support, and to prepare the country for victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2027 with a radical political hyperpop project. Between irony, grief and anger, the evening explores what voice, community and art can mean in the midst of war.
Cultural significance
VOX HUMANA combines documentary urgency with experimental music-theatre form, giving Ukrainian artists a stage in the middle of the war. The work exemplifies a politicised, boundary-crossing contemporary opera that deliberately dissolves the genre lines between opera, performance, lecture and club culture. As the Neuköllner Oper's season opener, it underlines the house's profile as a venue for contemporary, socially engaged music theatre.