Thomas Krupa has for "Nico. Sphinx aus Eis" created a score of texts, songs, sounds and documentary material. A work of music-theater created in collaboration with the New York composer and conductor Ari Benjamin Meyers, who himself interprets his music live on stage.
-Staatstheater Darmstadt Program


The woman on the stage is Nico. Or at least it could be Nico. But this isn't real. It's theater. The dramatist Werner Fritsch brings Nico back on stage and let's her speak: about her childhood in Cologne and about her father who died in the war. Her encounters: with Bob Dylan, who was always sure of her talent and introduced her to Andy Warhol, with Lou Reed, with whom she always maintained a love/hate relationship, with Alain Delon, the father of her son Ari, and with her soul mate Jim Morrison. In between these scenes are songs and fractured memories...
Berliner Zeitung

...It is the legend of a diva with the biography of a junky; a forced ride through a broken down life in 90 minutes. The dry-ice fog hangs heavy in the dimly lit room. At the piano is Ari Benjamin Meyers, who has creates the soundtrack for the evening: a mix of The Doors, Velvet Underground, violin melodies, and computer noise. Sometimes he plays a few fragile tones on a xylophone...
taz

..."Nco" is an hommage but not a hero worshipping; it is a multi-layered material collage made up of text, songs, and sound (music: Ari Benjamin Meyers). Karin Klein sings with big, scared eyes in the dry-ice haze (stage: Anja Jungheinrich) and speaks the names of the men that changed her life like they were tears: Warhol, Delon, Morrison. One is bathed for 90 minutes in music and memories.
Die Welt (Darmstadt production)

...The song texts, thoughts, and memories are not only held together by the music, arranged and composed by Ari Benjamin Meyers, but are dominated by it.
Die Welt (Berlin production)