• The Mimusen

PROJECTS

The pink danger – a musical play

Female composers? Do they even exist? Oh yes, indeed!
Creative, tragic, inspiring, dramatic, powerful, sparkling, heart-rending and sometimes sad. Everything that characterises ‘male’ compositions can also be found in their work. For, as Cécile Chaminade put it: ‘There is no gender in music’. Because of the long-held belief, dating back centuries, that women were only meant for housework and family life, their masterpieces remained hidden. Until now.

With *Rosa Gefahr*, the Mimusen tear away the veil of oblivion: what begins in the cellar as a search for the wedding album is transformed into a wonderfully chaotic spectacle by the whirlwind arrival of two musical mischief-makers. With a pinch of magic and a good dose of mist, the completely taken by surprise but curious discoverer becomes a stage for the past: one after the other, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Clara Schumann, Cécile Chaminade, Alma Mahler, Lili Boulanger and Ethel Smyth themselves come to life within her.

In this delightful play, accompanied by rousing music, the ensemble weaves together
The Mimusen’s humorous theatrical performance, featuring fascinating, rarely heard sounds. Join us on a gripping journey into a world full of strong women and fascinating life stories – you’ll find yourself cheering, laughing and crying along with them!

In addition to the musical theatre format, “the pink danger” is also available as a classic song recital with moderation.
Click here to view the stills.

Seven early songs” (Alban Berg) – The film

Vienna at the turn of the century. Birth of new thinking, new images and new sounds. Fairy tales, inexplicable phenomena, dreams and the unconscious are gaining an indispensable place in cultural life. What is fascinating about Berg’s cycle is the complexity of the melodies and the colorfulness of the harmonies. It’s like wading through sounds of the unconscious. . The underlying poems play with words and metaphors and are a rich treasure trove of images and impressions that arouse strong associations and whose visual implementation is literally obvious. You can hear the lights rising, the reeds rustling, the wind carrying your breath. Everything is underlined with an almost tangible sensuality and desire that makes the night and dreams rush. Everything is covered in gold dust from the turn of the century in Vienna and you are always just a small step away from the other world.
Based on Gustav Klimt’s opulent images and inspired by the film works of Peter Greenaway, Jean Luc Godard and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, this is the first time a song cycle has ever been filmed in this style. It is a feast for all the senses. Music, singing and acting act and sound at the highest level – an extraordinary film that is unparalleled in its uniqueness.

… In general, the singer with her lush, rich voice … interpreted the songs with a lot of colors …

… Denise Seyhan and Philip Dahlem turned this song into an almost shattering scene…

… Scenes and monologues in which Henrietta Teipel lets the protagonists speak for themselves provide some powerful moments…

… For the second time I fell for the “Pink Danger”…

… Great! …

… Very nice topic, wonderfully presented! Gladly more often! …

The Mimusen realise the wonderful idea of a “theatrical song recital” in an inspiring and often touching way: The masterful performance of musical works is always preceded by the introduction of the creators of this music through acting and spoken word – sometimes charming, sometimes amusing, sometimes surprising, always highly informative.

Thank you for this entertaining and brilliant evening!

We learned a lot and laughed a lot, and were touched by the sad moments and the fates of the composers. The absolutely convincingly played roles, the coherent text montage and character direction, the very sensitive piano accompaniment and the impressive voice resulted in a harmonious whole. The whole hall was thrilled! The setting, Ziegler Hall in the Akropolis Restaurant, was also perfect! As a colleague, I look forward to such artistic themed evenings with so much expression and passion. Really something different! Bravissimo! More like this!

The theatrical song recital “The Pink Danger” was shown twice on the nostalgic proscenium stage in the Zieglersaal Karlsruhe last weekend, and anyone who wasn’t there missed something. In Mimi Schwaiberger’s sensitive production, the ensemble “Die Mimusen” offered both informative and moving insights into the biography and work of 6 female composers such as Clara Schumann, Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Cécile Chaminade. The mezzo-soprano Denise Seyhan was always vocally up to the beautiful and sometimes very demanding songs thanks to her perfect technique. Philip Dahlem on the piano was an excellent, always attentive accompanist who not only mastered the piano parts confidently, but also particularly emphasized the emotions inherent in the songs through his careful playing. The absolute highlight of the evening was Michelle Brubach, who gave the characters contours and life with amazing versatility. Her interpretation of the self-confident Ethel Smyth was great; she moved people to tears with her portrayal of the fragile Lili Boulanger, who, after great success and serious illness, finally died at the age of 24. And as Alma Mahler, who didn’t mince her words, the actress was able to really give the monkey some sugar, which the audience acknowledged with enthusiastic applause. This evening showed how difficult it was for women composing over the centuries and what social resistance they had to fight against in a way that we would like to see more often: a “non-mainstream topic” was presented to the audience in an exciting, entertaining and emotional way, and at a high level of craftsmanship. The Ziegler Hall may visually exude a special kind of ambience – if music and theater are done well, they work everywhere. Chapeau!

The mezzo-soprano Denise Seyhan has dealt with this cycle in a very original way: she made a film of it in 2021. And what she and her artist colleagues – the pianist Philip Dahlem and the actress Michelle Brubach, together “Die Mimusen”, conjured up from this collection of songs, enchanted a small audience due to the pandemic in the Ziegler Hall in the south of the city. Seyhan comes from the stage artistically, her passion is the Fin de siècle. And it is this combination that creates an almost tangible existence for Berg’s music and the texts set to music. Seyhan lets her visual creativity run wild without exaggerating. Vocally completely convincing – as a “mezzo” she has to “go up” quite a bit, for example in Carl Hauptmann’s “Night” or in Storm’s “Nachtigall” – and dramatically very capable, she gives this complex song music a happy collaboration with Dahlem and in terms of acting with Brubach a further dimension, expanding it into a total work of art. The music and its texts demonstrate their oscillation between reality and dream, which is reflected, for example, when the co-creating pianist appears in short flashes; they appear as puzzles of hidden intentions, a phenomenon that has existed since the romantic era of E.T.A. Hoffmann spread a practice that often served to protect himself from censorship. Seyhan brings these meta-levels to life and, following the texts, also changes into male roles, exploring the morbidity, the intoxicatingly sensual, the iridescent nature of these miniatures. Even where the physicality of love is invoked, including its proximity to death, for example in Lenau’s “Reed Song” or Rilke’s “Dream Crowned”, it remains subtle without being concealed. Seyhan adds the power of images to Berg’s early songs – and creates a seductive opulence. The film will be offered to television stations and also posted on YouTube.

Women are simply dangerous! Entertaining and enjoyable! Excellent history teaching… Great!

An enrichment for the younger generation too.
Thank you very much for the wonderful experience and the great evening!

I found the performance very beautiful and exciting… it was very thrilling to experience the musical history of female composers in this way.

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The Mimuses – creation of the ensemble

The ensemble Die Mimusen was founded in summer 2021. Since performances were unthinkable this year due to the corona pandemic, Denise Seyhan decided to film the song cycle “Seven Early Songs” by Alban Berg. She found the ideal artistic partners in the pianist Philip Dahlem and the actress Michelle Brubach. The preview took place in front of an enthusiastic audience on January 15, 2022 in the Zieglersaal of the Akropolis restaurant in Karlsruhe. The review of the preview can be read in the following reviews.
Here you can find a short interview about the project in the magazine of the German Orchestra Foundation (issue 21/4), which funded the film.

With the play Die rosa Gefahr (The Pink Peril) about the lives of six female composers, Die Mimusen make their debut on the musical theatre stage. Their aim is to create new forms of musical performance. The ‘theatrical song recital’ was initially created by combining a classical song recital with theatrical scenes, thus adding another entertaining and informative dimension. The project received a grant from GVL/Neustart Kultur and the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Art. Following an enthusiastic premiere on 19 February 2022, the play has already enjoyed several guest performances in southern Germany in this form.
In September 2022, Michelle Brubach left “The Mimuses” and since then Henrietta Teipel has taken over the acting part.

Not least due to this new casting, Mimusen revised Die rosa Gefahr in 2024, turning it into a ‘musical theatre piece’. Sponsored by the Cultural Office of the City of Karlsruhe and the Sanfilippo Design Office, it was performed for the first time in this new form on 9 June 2024 and, as in the following guest performances, was enthusiastically received by the audience.