Mnozil Brass (official page)is a Viennese brass septet. They’ve been around for a while now, and make really cool music. Together with director Bernd Jeschek, they’ve made an opera called “Irmingard”.

Irmingard is about 7 princes, who are looking for wives, because the women, or at least the princesses of their countries are gone [for various reasons]. By chance, they find Princess Irmingard and her entourage of 6 baronesses. But Irmingard is quite a bitch and turns the princes down, which enrages her (grand?)father so much, he locks her and her entourage in with the dragon. The princes try to rescue them [and I don’t think I’ll be giving much away when I say that they succeed].

The whole opera is played by Mnozil Brass. And by played I mean that they play the music as well as all the roles, including the singing.

Irmingard and her entourage

Although all of them know how to handle the brass instruments, none of them really knows how to sing. But fortunately, they are not serious in anything they do onstage, so it would have seemed kinda weird, had they actually hit the notes while singing. Bad enough that they play well.

The lyrics of the opera are hilarious and the guys are awesome, especially because they make fun of themselves all the time.

I definitely laughed and enjoyed the evening.

But [yes, there’s a but] some of the parts made me – as a generally PC person – squirm. There was one of the princes [from an undisclosed location], who was a cannibal [they had eaten all the women, that’s why he was seeking for another]. Not in itself a problem. But then they started to dance in what is, in Europe, usually perceived as an African way, talking gibberish, which had the melody of an African language and started to rap, which is still seen as black music.
Maybe I’m overreacting and overinterpreting, but I was not really comfortable with that.

And then the whole The Taming of the Shrew kind of plot – honestly, when I read TTotS, I was appalled by the misogyny of the play. But okay, historical context, yadda yadda.
But I really don’t need to see this today. Fortunately, it was not that strong that you couldn’t overlook it. But still – not necessary.

Well, apart from that, it was fine. It was fun. And it even had an Austin Powers reference, which probably nobody else in the audience got (or at least, I was the only person laughing about it).