The theater is, in no small measure, also a place of listening, an »auditorium«: the sonic landscape of contemporary theater performances is characterised by polished sound designs, melody loops, pop songs, operatic arias, noises or prolonged phases of silence. Katie Mitchell, David Marton, Michael Thalheimer and Christoph Marthaler do not just listen a lot, but above all, they each listen differently. Katharina Rost analyzes the various ways of listening which result from the acoustic design of performances and dynamics of auditory attention – e.g. »drifting away,« »being absorbed,« »listening attentively,« or »being engrossed« – and asks to what extent these modes of perception stand in a tense relation with the historical ideal of reception, that of concentrated listening.
