Cold Genius

Music: Eberhard Schoener, Libretto: Alec Cuddeback/ Eberhard Schoener

In December 1982 Eberhard Schoener hired Klaus Nomi for one of his "Classic-Rock-Nights". His characteristic performance was to sing classical opera music and hits of the 30s in the manner of counter-tenors.
Eberhard Schoener met Klaus Nomi again in New York and witnessed how Nomi got caught in the claws of American music management. After the concert in Munich Eberhard Schoener visited him twice again in New York where Klaus Nomi still lived in poorest conditions at the Lower East Side. He died from Aids beginning of August 1983 in New York. Shortly after his death he became a pop-cult-figure in Europe and America.

	The opera "Cold Genius" describes the last hours of Nomi's life and his pipe dream to sing once on the stage of an opera. In a virtual-reality-environment his agent (Laurence Gien) asks him to fulfill his dream and to sing - as Cupido - together with Cold Genius (Kurt Moll) the famous duet from the opera "King Arthur" by Purcell. The result is several layers of reality. Klaus Nomi cannot realize the different situations anymore. The agent stages a duel-scene between Klaus Nomi and Cold Genius which ends with the on stage death of Klaus Nomi in the opera. But is he really dead? "What is reality?" becomes the leitmotiv of the opera. The agent takes the remote control of the television set and spirits both protagonists (Cold Genius and Klaus Nomi) away. He reveals himself as the "Agent Of Death" (Main street..), just to spirit himself away right after. Only the television set stays on and Klaus Nomi now sees his pipe dream come true in a different reality.
Geoge Kochbek
Kurt Moll