Eleanor Everest Freer: The Legend of the Piper

After a year's break, the music theatre project of the teaching programme resumes operations in 2026. In cooperation with Hochschule für bildende Künste Dresden and Sächsisches Landesgymnasium für Musik Dresden, an opera based on the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is staged - composed by American composer Eleanor Everest Freer.

The opera not only tells the familiar story of the magical flute player, but also asks questions about the people behind it: What kind of person decides to abduct a city's children? Who are the townspeople who refuse to pay him and thereby endanger their children's fate? What role do social expectations and gender roles play in such an escalation?

Performers

Singers: Students of the teaching programme at Hochschule für Musik and children from grades 6 and 7 of Sächsisches Landesgymnasium für Musik

Orchestra: Students of the teaching programme at Hochschule für Musik

Musical direction: Hanjo Laabs, Justin Rogge

Direction: Emma Friedrich, Rosa Üregi

Directing assistant: Jonathan Breidel

Set design: Merle Sims, Vendela Thönebe

Costumes/Make-up: Noemi Bernstein, Franziska Körner, Emma Groß, Hanna Rößler