Germany's 2006 World Cup Will Include Soccer Opera by Robert Wilson

The opera will be a collaboration between director Robert Wilson, music producer Hal Wilner, and singer-songwriter Herbert Groenemeyer, and will have its premiere May 31, 2006, near Berlin's Staatsoper Unter den Linden, in an outdoor venue.

In a press conference, Wilson said that the opera, tentatively titled Soccersongs, would feature projection screens and inflatable objects, and will use robots instead of actors. "The first big scene will be a soccer match with dinosaurs," Wilson said. "The second scene will show cavewomen and dinosaurs. It will be an event for the family."

The 30-million euro cultural program also features a soccer oratorio called Die Tiefe des Raumes (The Depths of Space). The oratorio's music is by Moritz Eggert, with a libretto by Michael Klaus, and it will have its premiere at the RuhrTriennale in Bochum on September 11 of this year.

The program also includes a hip-hop soccer show, a film starring John Cleese, and over 40 other projects.

"The World Cup is a chance for our country that we cannot let pass," interior minister Otto Schily wrote in the project catalogue. "We want to offer more than a first-class football tournament, [and also] promote out country far beyond the stadiums."