The 5th Season

While the 5th Season was originally an unrestrained celebration of the people, during which the oppressed were allowed to express their opinions about those in power with impunity, this premise seems rather obsolete in the year 2026. What good are a few great days in the face of 100 million digital expressions of opinion per second, 365 days a year? Who cares about carnival speeches and satirical sculptures on parade floats when you can make fun of others at any time and more publicly than ever before without having to fear serious consequences? Voilà. So how could Rose Monday and the like be brought back to life?

Perhaps something like this: The 5th Season becomes an ecstatic celebration of pause, an official and grand stage for initiatives that provide meaningful and respectful forms of social coexistence! In any case, Novoflot is getting right down to business: following the world premieres of musical theater productions for the “5th Season” in Zurich, Athens, and Berlin (including the proclamation of the “First Berlin Carnival Stronghold”!), the focus is now on several days of foundational artistic research in Cologne! The experiments are heading in very different directions: while wondrous “Magic Societies” gather at the Philharmonie for the polyphonic “First Fat Tuesday in Cologne” and subsequently witness an unprecedented philharmonic carnival hypnosis, countless carnival sleepwalkers are roaming public spaces and, in the process, also stumble upon the “First and Only Cologne Open-Air Lenten Cinema” with Dolby Stereo sound! A festival program that brings the wide range of possible new interpretations of the “5th season” to life for your eyes and ears!

This is made possible through the collaboration of over 100 musicians from the Cologne Youth Wind Orchestra and Ensemble ColLab, as well as soloists, dancers, and performers from Cologne, the composers Michael Wertmüller (Switzerland), Antonis Anissegos (Greece), Jacopo Salvatori (Italy), the British soprano Rosemary Hardy, and the international team from Novoflot! The cast also includes the Austrian actor Peter Fasching, who most recently appeared at the Schauspiel Köln in “Asche” (2025) and has also performed at venues such as the Burgtheater in Vienna and the Schauspiel Hamburg.

The 5th Season: Overture

2 October
Bürgerhaus Stollwerck
With guitar and electronics, two soprano voices, viola da gamba, choir, electric bass, keyboards, and sampled violin sounds from a (real!) member of the Berlin Philharmonic, Novoflot shifts the perspective on Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”—an evergreen composed 300 years ago. Amid the turmoil of today’s world events, teeming with countless question marks, Novoflot’s Seasons Ensemble investigates rumors that the scores of Vivaldi’s four violin concertos might hide a secret code for a world-changing FIFTH season—one that has yet to be discovered in this form.

The Circle of the Foolish Sleepwalkers

3 October
Severinskirchplatz
In the 1930s, Hermann Broch wrote his seminal work “The Sleepwalkers. The book explores the gradual decline of values during the period from 1888 to 1918. It depicts a society that threatens to fall asleep bit by bit, despite (or because of) increasingly escalating conflicts. Excerpts from this text serve as the starting point for a performance in public space. A speaker has taken his place in the center of the public square to speak about the societal somnambulism of the year 2026, but his lecture is repeatedly interrupted by sleepwalking singers, musicians, and dancers who appear out of nowhere and lead the speaker astray

The Fasten Cinema

4 October
Wilhelmplatz
Many people are enthusiastic open-air moviegoers. Novoflot is capitalizing on this trend and invites you to Cologne’s first and only Fasten Cinema at an extremely unusual location in public space. Here, cinematic images and real architecture, as well as film music and the location’s ambient sounds, form an utterly wondrous symbiosis. Carnival is a thing of the past! Long live Novoflot’s Fastenkino!

First “Dicker Dienstag” in Cologne and 
The Great Carnival Hypnosis

6 October, Cologne Philharmonic Hall
Building on the traditions of the legendary Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday movement from New Orleans, Novoflot are the initiators and hosts of the reestablishment of several highly musical “Magic Societies,” whose unusual and stunning performances herald the carnival of the future. Together with musicians and performers from Cologne, as well as soloists from the international jazz scene, they create a hybrid music-theater production featuring more than 50 participants.
After intermission, the real challenge begins: How might we successfully and firmly establish the reinvention of the carnival concept as a celebration of a society that reflects on itself and honors the fundamental conditions of coexistence oriented toward the common good? Novoflot is surprised that no one has thought of this yet and proposes hypnosis! More precisely: the strictly music-based, classical-philharmonic audience hypnosis according to Peter Fasching & Rosemary Hardy!

Building on the traditions of New Orleans’ legendary Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday movement, Novoflot are the initiators and hosts of several newly founded, highly musical “Magic Societies,” whose unusual and stunning performances herald the carnival of the future. Together with the ensemble dissonArt, a vocal and performance ensemble, soloists from the international jazz scene, and musicians from the Berlin scene, a hybrid music theater production featuring more than 100 participants is taking shape. Following the first celebrations in May 2026 at the Greek National Opera in Athens, Novoflot now invites you to “Fat Tuesday” in Berlin and welcomes numerous magical allies to gradually craft a new vision of Carnival through music-making!

Link to Theater im Delphi

With NO NAME (GOD), Novoflot searches for previously undiscovered potentials of togetherness, finding them within the ancient movements of seeking and wandering that define pilgrimage. Contemplation, insight, and euphoria form the three central categories. As the audience moves from one station to another, they experience a highly individual operatic journey and find themselves immersed in Novoflot’s music-theatrical proposal for an entirely new form of pilgrimage: wild spinning instead of walking, drama and ecstasy instead of introspection, Wertmüller’s compositional power instead of silence and meditation.

The project brings together outstanding musicians from jazz and contemporary music, two choirs with more than 50 participants, guests from intercultural communities, and a performance ensemble.

Together, they create stations between organ, choir, free jazz sessions, and gospel, forming a new kind of pilgrimage community that—just a few centimeters beyond penance and vows—searches for new ways of coming closer to the nameless God.

The renowned Berlin-based opera company Novoflot returns to the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera with its new production.

Drawing on the traditions of the legendary Mardi Gras movement in New Orleans, Novoflot acts—on Athens’ Fat Tuesday—as both initiator and host for the founding of several highly musical “Magic Societies,” whose unusual and dazzling performances herald the carnival of the future.

Together with the ensemble dissonArt, a vocal and performance ensemble, soloists from the international jazz scene, and musicians from the Athenian scene, a hybrid music-theatre work emerges with more than 100 participants. The production combines contemporary music and jazz, Renaissance carnival music and band elements, political speeches, and world premieres by Antonis Anissegos (Greece) and Michael Wertmüller (Switzerland).

^{With the support of the} International Coproduction Fund (Internationaler Koproduktionsfonds) of the Goethe-Institut
^{A co-production with the} Goethe-Institut (International Coproduction Fund)
^{Funded by the} Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion Berlin

Die 5. Jahreszeit geht weiter! Nach der erfolgreichen Ouvertüre im Kühlhaus Berlin im Sommer dieses Jahres startet Novoflot am 11. 11. in ihre erste Karnevalssaison. Und das um 11:11 Uhr in Form einer Kundgebung mit Live-Schalte an elf verschiedene öffentliche Orte Berlins, mit jeweils elf Minuten Musiktheater und dem elfmaligen Erklingen der neuen Elftonfanfare! Die musikalische Kundgebung erfolgt zur Bekanntgabe des Gründungstags der Ersten Berliner Karnevalshochburg. Als Demonstration plädiert sie für die Einrichtung des 11. Novembers als nationalen Feiertag zur Besinnung auf zentrale Kategorien des auf dem Grundgesetz basierenden Gemeinwohlgedankens: Soldiarität, Gerechtigkeit, Respekt, Transparenz, Nutzung und Verteilung von Ressourcen.

Wenige Tage später, am 14. November, beginnt der nächste Teil des Projektes auf dem Vorplatz der Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Hier hält der Shuttlebus von Novoflot und fährt das Publikum direkt zur Eröffnung der ersten Berliner Karnevalshochburg! An diesem noch geheim gehaltenen Ort soll dann der Karnevalsgedanke neu gedacht werden. Gestellt wird die Frage aller Fragen: Was ist Wahrheit?! In Zeiten permanenter Desinformation und unaufhörlicher Überflutung durch 8 Milliarden Meinungsäußerungen pro Tag wird Novoflots 5. JAHRESZEIT zum künstlerischen Sprachrohr. Hier soll gelingen, was derzeit nirgendwo gelingt: Zurück in die Zukunft einer Idee von Wahrheit, auf die Gesellschaften sich verbindlich einigen, um endlich wieder politisch sein zu können. Und künstlerisch. Und ausgelassen. Und solidarisch. Und so musikalisch wie niemals zuvor.

Wie das klingen könnte? Auf jeden Fall ziemlich anders als auf den Straßen Rio de Janeiros, Kölns, Venedigs oder Basels. In Novoflots Musik der 5. Jahreszeit korrespondieren Improvisationen (Nils Wogram, Conny Bauer, Haydn Chisholm, Chris Dahlgren u.a.) mit Uraufführungen (Michael Wertmüller, Antonis Anissegos) sowie Echos von Vokal- und Instrumentalkompositionen aus jenen längst vergangenen Zeiten, in denen die Menschen Europas sich schon einmal erfolgreich an einer Wiederbelebung kultureller Errungenschaften zugunsten des Gemeinwohls versuchten.

Nach den «Vier Jahreszeiten» von Antonio Vivaldi

Mit Kontrabass und Elektronik, zwei Sopranstimmen, Gambe, Chor, E-Bass, Tasteninstrumenten und gesampelten Violinklängen eines (echten!) Berliner Philharmonikers verschiebt Novoflot die Perspektiven auf den vor 300 Jahren komponierten „Vier Jahreszeiten“-Evergreen von Antonio Vivaldi. Im Treiben des von unzähligen Fragezeichen bevölkerten Weltgeschehens der Gegenwart geht das Jahreszeiten-Ensemble von Novoflot Gerüchten nach, dass in den Partituren der vier Violinkonzerte Vivaldis der Geheimcode für eine alles verändernde, in dieser Form noch unentdeckte FÜNFTE Jahreszeit versteckt sein könnte. Ein singulärer, aus Kunst-, Klima- und Karnevalsbausteinen zusammengesetzter Jahreszeitenhybrid! Während Novoflot unnachgiebig verschiedenste Spuren verfolgen, verwandeln sie eines der berühmtesten Werke der Musikgeschichte und öffnen ungewöhnliche Zwischenräume: Inmitten überhitzter Sommer, verschobener Frühlingsanfänge, viel zu milder Winter sowie abwesender Herbstgewitter initiieren Novoflot mit dieser Ouvertüre einen internationalen Kulturdialog und beginnen eine weit verzweigte Reise durch Europa und Südamerika. So wird die Berliner Opernkompanie im Anschluss an diese Ouvertüre zwei Jahre lang performative Formate, Workshops und wissenschaftlich-künstlerische Diskurse zu einer musiktheatralen Karnevalssause verbinden. Gemeinsam mit einem diversen und internationalen Ensemble aus Performer*innen und Komponierenden der Musiktheaterszene entsteht ein Kulturgig, der die 5. Jahreszeit als aussichtsreiche gesellschaftliche Utopie postuliert!