Musical performance in the public space
Co-stage direction and dramaturgy
World première May 2016
at the Munich Biennale – International Festival for New Music Theatre
Further Performances: Music Chapel, Waterloo; Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg; Festival d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence
A production of the Münchener Biennale and Theaterakademie August Everding coproduced by Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel
with the support of enoa and Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Composition: Cathy van Eck
Stage direction: Blanka Radoczy
Costumes: Claudia Irro
Soprano: Elizabeth Marshall
Mezzo-soprano: Andromahi Raptis
Baritone: Bavo Orroi
The voice as a phenomenon of passage is at the core of nocturnal events. Voices move between body and spirit, sensuousness and sense, affect and intellect. What happens when the voice detaches from the body – like it has been brought to perfection by technological media?
In the 19th century the disembodied voices coming from the novel phonographs had an enormous drawing power: Apparently now one could conserve the voices of the dead and bring them back to life once again. Even the inventor and researcher Thomas Edison worked on a device to communicate with the afterworld. But despite enormous scientific progress, the threshold between life and death still lies beyond our fantasy and possibilities. Access is reserved solely for legendary figures in our mythological tales. In the story of Orpheus it is also the voice that paves the way to the dead.
The voices of artistic singing every evening along the Isar River will be gradually modified technically – only traces of the bodies doing the singing will remain behind. The vocal transformations speak to us as if they were coming from different worlds. A game of obscurity and discovery, of presence and absence begins.