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MUSIC ON THE LABYRINTH |
Opera Breve presents a special multifaith performance event at Christ Church Cathedral on Friday, March 23rd, Music on the Labyrinth. Featured will be a rarely performed one-act opera, Savitri, by Gustav Holst. Taken from the Mahabharata, this beautiful story depicts the transcendence of death through love and courage. Also on the program will be songs, arias and ensembles interwoven with poetry based on mystic themes. The labyrinth is an ancient symbol that combines the circle and the spiral into a path. Used as a meditation tool, it can be considered as a journey to the center of one's deepest self. The performance will be entirely staged and choreographed on a labyrinth, and the audience is invited to walk it before and after the performance, or during intermission. Featured artists will be: Sopranos Mari Hahn and Leanne Koch, tenor Adam Kozak, baritone Andrew Greenwood, dancer Cathy Burnett and Wind Rombough, pianist Zsuzsanna Lukacs and the Cathedral Women's Choir. Don't miss this event! DATE: Friday, March 23rd at 7:30 pm
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AIRLINE ICARUS |
AIRLINE ICARUS (a new chamber opera, in development)
by Brian Current and Anton Piatogorsky
Airline Icarus is a unique musical experience that explores the strange feelings of isolation, fear, humour, mystery and beauty that we have all known to some degree when flying. It explores such themes as hubris mixed with technology, forced intimacy of strangers and flying too close to the sun.
Sung in English, the opera takes place aboard a commercial jet plane. The main body of the work is concerned with the intersecting thoughts of the various characters and their relationships as the flight progresses. The focus is on three passengers (all in the same row of seats): a lonely businessman (bass-baritone), a tormented young woman (soprano), and a youthful classical scholar (anti-heroic tenor) who is terrified of flying. The plane’s flight attendant (mezzo-soprano) is also present, serving food and drinks, talking to passengers, and engaged in her own singing soliloquy.
The opera explores the emotional journey of these characters in the midst of an anxious yet potentially beautiful and transcendent experience. The libretto and the music weave back and forth between their thoughts and build to overlapping climaxes as the plane takes off and plateaus. As each of the characters fall prey to their individual fears, turbulence strikes and each are catapulted into isolated crises. Here, the metaphorical world takes over from the real. The plane becomes expressionistic. The characters walk both inside and outside and are subjected to winds and harsh atmosphere according to their psychological state. To the extent that the opera follows the Icarus myth, this is where waxwings are brightly set ablaze. Simultaneously, in a separate space, the pilot appears and sings thoughts of tranquility and beauty.
Lasting roughly one hour, the work is scored for nine instruments (flute, clarinet, percussion I, percussion II, piano, violin I, violin II, viola, cello) and five solo voices. Minimal electronics and amplification are used to highlight inner thoughts. We have envisioned a practical set design, giving space to both the inside and the outside of a commercial jet airplane. Musicians are visible to the audience rather than concealed in an orchestra pit. In fact, individual players are choreographed to emerge and become part of the scene, blurring the lines between sound and theatre in an innovative way, creating a place of intersection where music and drama can meet in the true spirit of opera.
OPERA BREVE VANCOUVER
Post Office Box 2050, MPO,
Vancouver BC, Canada, V6B 3R6.
(604) 682 3848 ext 53 / Fax (604) 682 8377
Donna Wong - Juliani • General Director