Constructed life. Biography in the New Music Theater in the context of creation, innovation and communication

New Music Theater is often faced with the accusation of being stuck in traditional narrative structures. Still, in many new compositions non-linear narrative techniques of the music, libretto and staging forms appear that go hand in hand with a new attention to and forms of the narration. This phenomenon is to be investigated with regard to biographical narratives using the examples of Manos Tsangaris' 'Karl May' (2014), Mark-Anthony Turnages' 'Anna Nicole' (2011) and Brian Ferneyhough's 'Shadowtime' (2004): How are biographies (de)constructed in these three case studies? To what extent can music-theater-specific narrative forms be described, or to what extent do these works take part in alternative narrative forms of the biographical as they have been developed in science and literature in recent years? The aim is to contribute both to the study of biography in musicology and to the research on New Music Theater and the interactions between musical dramaturgy, alternative organizational structures and collaborative development processes.