NODO 2024 / New Opera Days Ostrava
June 26, 2024
18:30 | Jiří Myron Theatre
Pascal Dusapin: Passion (2006–2007) / Czech premiere
Opera in ten scenes
Music and libretto: Pascal Dusapin
Conductor: Walter Kobera
Director: Ursula Horner
Stage design: Norbert Chmel
Light design: Vasil Lisichov
Costumes: Melanie Frost
Sound design: Christina Bauer
Vocal coach: Anna Sushon
Performers:
Melis Demiray, soprano (Her)
Wolfgang Resch, baritone (Him)
PPCM Vocal Ensemble Graz
– Beatriz Gaudencia Ramos, soprano
– Laure Catherine Beyers, soprano
– Justina Vaitkute, alt
– Valentino Blasina, tenor
– Martin Simonovski, baritone
– Harald Hieronymus Hein, bass
Ostravská banda
Czech premiere, 90’
In Italian language with Czech and English subtitles
In cooperation with Neue Oper Wien
"Him, Her and the Others… Passion is an opera that reworks the myth of Orpheus but almost in reverse, so to speak. “I found opposing passions to set to music – war, prayer and even death...”
In Passion, there are two characters: “Him”, a man, and “Her”, a woman. The others are called “Gli altri” [Italian for “the others”]. There is also a snake that we do not see but that we know is around somewhere... Like “Lei” [Italian for “Her”] and “Lui” [Ital: “Him”], who are driven by the perpetual movement of one passion flowing into another, I imagine a type of music in which sound and word can never be distinguished. The passions cling to each other, oppose each other and divide into multiple paths traversed by fear, joy, pain, terror, desire, ecstasy, grief, love and anger.
The movement of Passion is that of a voyage. But “She” will refuse to return to the sun because she knows the end of that story. “He”, who is affected by all things but is always preparing for war, will allow himself to be forever buried with her “in that dark den, in which he knows the road of return to the sun is closed”. (Dante)
Pascal Dusapin
Pascal Dusapin (1955) is a French composer. A pupil at the Schola Cantorum, Pascal Dusapin also studied the plastic arts and the sciences of art at the Sorbonne, and followed the seminars of Iannis Xenakis. Marked by the work of Edgar Varèse andFranco Donatoni, and influenced by jazz, he has developed an independent style characterised by the use of microtonality and intense polyphony, having a constant care for the organisation of intervals. His feeling for melody has led him to reproduce the intonation of the voice in instrumental writing. His output is infused with literary, pictorial and philosophical references. He taught at the Collège de France 2006–2007. His works include Lumen (1977), If (1984, commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture), Roméo et Juliette (1988, premiered at the Radio France Festival in Montpellier), To be sung (1993), Perelà (2001, premiered at the Opéra Bastille, Paris), Faustus, the last night (2005, commissioned by Berlin Opera), Uncut (2009).
June 27, 2024
18:30 | Antonín Dvořák Theatre
František Chaloupka: The Sell-Out (2024) / World premire
Opera about organization, 2024
Music & libretto: František Chaloupka
Dramaturgy: Petr Jan Kryštof
Conductor: Bruno Ferrandis
Live Cinema: Tomáš Hlaváček
Costume design: Borjan Litovski
Director and stage design: Rocc
Performers:
Felix Heuser, baritone (John the Pilot)
Markéta Drabina Schaffartzik, soprano (Wife–Stewardess)
Zuzana Smrčková, soprano (Greta, their daughter)
Martin Javorský, tenor / countertenor (De Geer / Co-Pilot / Steward Stewart)
Canticum Ostrava, mixed choir (Stewards and Stewardesses)
Jurij Galatenko, choirmaster
Ostravská banda
World premiere, 110’
In English with Czech subtitles
*commission of the festival
"Fly higher and be closer to your loved ones". Philosophical dramedy about everyday things from airport and aircraft life. John is a Pilot and Teacher of mankind, his intentions are pure. He works for AMOS which prompts him to update his "Pan-Application". He can't refuse, he has to save the mankind from confusion. The plot is taking place in modern days, we are watching characters, descendants of noble ideas, struggling with the daily pitfalls of even more complicated system.
Opera is loosely inspired by the work of John Comenius (1592–1670), the icon of the Czech culture, the "teacher of nations", who laid the foundations of didactics used in contemporary educational system. He advocated and basically invented the "school as a game" approach and called for system simplification of an overcomplicated world. Bit ironically, his textbooks and spiritual writings were sponsored mainly by Swedish military industry and count De Geer.
František Chaloupka (1981, Czechoslovakia) primarily composes instrumental music and scores for classical instruments, chamber and symphony orchestras, operas and multimedia works. He is also sought out as an orchestrator, producer and guitar player. After finishing his studies in composition at the Janáček conservatory in Ostrava, he began to study composition with Martin Smolka at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, where he went on to complete his Ph.D. in composition (2014). In 2006 he studied composition at Royal Conservatory of The Hague (Netherlands) with Louis Andriessen, Clarence Barlow, Martijn Padding and Richard Ayres. He participated in international courses for composers and percussionists in Trstěnice (2004, 2005) and was given scholarship for Ostrava Days Festival (2005, 2007). OD Festival also premiered his orchestral pieces An Ancient Calligraphy (2007), Smooth The Heavens (2009) and Darwin Among The Machines (2021) and Allegory of the Cave II. (2023). In April 2011 he founded Dunami Ensemble and performed his opera-installation Eve and Lilith at New Opera Days of Ostrava 2012. His pieces have been commissioned and performed by internationally renowned musicians and ensembles, e.g. New Century Players Los Angeles, Ensemble Modern & Péter Eötvös, Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Modern, International Ensemble Modern Academy (IEMA), BERG Orchestra, Trio Accanto, Aleph Gitarrenquartett, VENI Academy, and Klangforum Wien.
June 28, 2024
18:30 | Tatran Hall
Amir Shpilman & Shiran Eliaserov: IMPACT (2022–2024) / World premiere
IMPACT – an inner journey out of darkness
Immersive opera for soprano, stuntwoman, riggers, orchestra, mixed choir and live electronics, 2022–24
Artistic conception and stage direction: Amir Shpilman & Shiran Eliaserov
Composition: Amir Shpilman
Choreography: Shiran Eliaserov
Dramaturgy (Phase 1): Louis Geisler
Sound artists: Anton Kondratov & Egor Ananko
Production management: Rania Mavriki / Cultopia
Conductor: Lilianna Krych
Performers:
Katsiaryna Zhynhiarouskaya, soprano
Helga Wretman, stuntwoman & artist
Alexander Kusmak, Gravity Stunts: Stunt Coordinator
Raffael Armbruster, Gravity Stunts: Stunt Rigger
Anton Kondratov, live electronics
Canticum Ostrava
Jurij Galatenko, choirmaster
Ostravská banda
World premiere, 60’
IMPACT (Phase I) is supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR. This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union.
IMPACT – an inner journey out of darkness – is an evolution of the performative installation "Inversion of a Future" by Amir Shpilman and Shiran Eliaserov. It brings a new viscerality to the experience of the human body through new operatic elements infused with live film stunts. The result of extensive research, supported by institutions such as DockART, the Berlin Senate and the Fonds Darstellende Künste, IMPACT brings together the interdisciplinary expertise of this creative team. Reimagining the heroic stunts and cinematic gestures of popular culture, IMPACT uncovers the fear, vulnerability, and mortality that lie within. In the course of a lifetime, a multitude of events pull us out of our daily lives and confront us with the issues of life and death. Some of these events are so powerful that they challenge the foundations of our own world in which we build our identity. We call these events "traumas". Traumas shatter our illusions and confront us with the unbearable revelation of our mortality. Everything becomes chaotic and meaningless. We are strangers to ourselves. Totally powerless in an unknown universe, without any idea of the game's new rules. Then begins an inner journey full of episodes and pitfalls in this infernal wonderland in pursuit of a familiar voice that must be tamed in order to sing a new story: our own.
Amir Shpilman (1980) began his musical journey at the age of 12 as a percussionist. At 17, he commenced composition studies with Professor Efim Yofe in Tel Aviv. After ten additional years of musical training in Paris and New York, Shpilman founded the Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, a New York-based chamber orchestra specializing in contemporary music. He served as its artistic director from 2011–2015. Shpilman earned a Bachelor’s degree in music composition at the City University of New York, studying with with Jason Eckardt and Tania Leon. He received his Master’s degree in Composition with a focus on conducting, and Meister in Composition from the Academy of Music Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden. Shpilman has worked with a variety of performers, orchestras, and ensembles including the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), MIVOS String Quartet, Ensemble Moto Perpetuo (New York), Ensemble Meitar and Nikel Ensemble (Tel Aviv), Interface (Frankfurt), AuditivVokal Dresden, and Ensemble Mosaik (Berlin), among others. A trained conductor, Shpilman is interested in the physicality of music. He often works in the theatrical realm and collaborates with dancers, designers, visual artists, poets, authors, and scientists to deploy his musical ideas. He has a particular interest in chaotic forms as they are expressed through artistic means. Fascinated by shapes that reflect inherent musical forms, he aspires to translate the relationship between structure and volatility into authenticity in performance. Shpilman lives and works in Berlin and New York. His music is published by Edition Gravis.
Shiran Eliaserov (1985) is an award-winning choreographer, performer, and video artist who has ventured into opera stage direction. She graduated from SEAD—Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance and holds an MA degree in Choreography from the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum für Tanz—Berlin. Eliaserov presents her work internationally, including in Austria, Israel, Germany, Portugal, Holland, Poland, Greece, India, the USA, Russia, and Japan. Her central project, 'The Rope’ (2018-2024), includes the works 'Beyond Control,' 'Beyond Constructed Remains, 'Sheeriot Muvnot,’ and 'Potential Practice: On Archives of Ropes'. In 2020, she initiated 'Inversion of a Future' with Amir Shpilman. This collaboration reimagines stunt film action as a contemporary opera exploring themes of resilience. It resulted in live installations at the Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art (2021) and Impact Opera (2023). Eliaserov is also recognized for her work as a video artist. In 2016, she co-founded Holytropic Film Production with cinematographer Johan Planefeldt. They have twice won the PEARLS ARTIST PRIZE at the POOL International Dance Film Festival Berlin. The Mifal Hapais Foundation, the Berliner Senat, FONDS Darstellender Künste, and Dockart Theater Berlin support Shiran.
June 28, 2024
20:30 | Ostrava Puppet Theatre
Luigi Russolo & Petr Rezek: Russolo's Bitter End (2018–2024) / World premiere
Russolo’s Bitter End
Opera in four scenes, 2018–24
Libretto: Petr Rezek in cooperation with Opening Performance Orchestra
Music: work in progress
Director: Petr Odo Macháček
Performers:
Miroslav Paulíček – Russolo, composer
Lucie Zachovalová – Georgette, Russolo’s housemaid
Petr Ferenc – Giacomo, the cat
Pavla Radostová – Angel
Instrumentalists:
Luciano Chessa – intonarumori (stropicciatore), dan bau
Anna Clementi – intonarumori (crepitatore)
Werner Durand – intonarumori (ululatore), whistle
Miroslav Beinhauer – piano
Jan Kolář – technician, intonarumori (alternativelly)
World premiere, 60’
In Czech with English subtitles
Luigi Russolo is inextricably linked in music history with the authorship of the radical manifesto The Art of Noise, published in 1913, and with the special musical instruments called intonarumori. Russolo’s Bitter End narrates the fictional story of this Italian painter and composer and his search for the divine noise in the world and in music. In his quest for the divine noise, Russolo encounters the inventions of modern technology, the illusions of concrete sounds in Rossini's opera and Ludwig Beethoven's Wellington’s Victory. His guides will be Giacomo the cat and Georgette the housekeeper. The musical realisation will be undertaken by experienced intonarumori players Luciano Chessa (founder of the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners), Anna Clementi and Werner Durand in collaboration with pianist Miroslav Beinhauer and futurist instrument designer Jan Kolář. The acting parts will be performed by Miroslav Paulíček (Luigi Russolo), Petr Ferenc (The Cat), Lucie Zachovalová (Georgette, the narrator) and Pavla Radostová (Angel). The libretto was written by Czech philosopher and great opera expert Petr Rezek (1948–2022) in collaboration with the Opening Performance Orchestra. The opera Russolo’s Bitter End will be a tribute to the courageous efforts of Luigi Russolo and to the author of the opera's libretto, Petr Rezek.
Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) was an Italian composer, painter and art theorist. His name is inextricably linked with Futurism – a radical avant-garde artistic movement of the early 20th century, characterised by a rejection of existing cultural traditions and a leaning towards modernity (...speed, technology, industry, violence, the city, new means of transport... – these are just some of the sources of inspiration for Futurism). Russolo described his artistic approach, which blurred the boundary between musical sound and noise, in his manifesto The Art of Noise (1913). He then consistently fulfilled his artistic vision in his compositions, even creating (together with Ugg Piati) experimental musical instruments (or rather "noise makers") for them, the so-called Intonarumori. Russolo gave several concerts of his compositions, but most of them have not survived. His main contribution to the further development of new and experimental music lies primarily at the ideological and theoretical level – he set out on a completely different approach to music, which later became an important inspiration for musique concrète, electroacoustic music, and also the work of John Cage.
Petr Rezek (1948–2022) was a Czech phenomenological philosopher and art theorist. After studying psychology, philosophy and aesthetics (Faculty of Arts, Charles University), he worked as a clinical psychologist. Between 1979 and 1989 he was forced to work as a janitor. He collaborated with the philosopher Jiří Němec, was in close contact with Jan Patočka, and was close to Jindřich Chalupecký. In the 1980s, he led one of the most important philosophical residential seminars and, in cooperation with the British Jan Hus Association, co-organised secret visits of British academics. From 1991 he lectured at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University and later also at the Academy of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Art and Architecture of the Technical University in Liberec. In his theoretical work, he focused mainly on phenomenological psychology and the phenomenology of art. In the 1980s he began to deal more intensely with ancient philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus). After the Velvet Revolution, he initiated the PomFil (Help of the Philosopher) edition of the OIKOYMENH publishing house and also ran his own publishing house, where he published works by ancient thinkers. He received the Tom Stoppard Prize for his book Architectonics and Protoarchitecture, and the F. X. Šalda Prize for his publication Slipping or Death.
June 29, 2024
18:30 | Jiří Myron Theatre
Ian Davis: Ephemeral Pulse (2024) / World premiere
One-act, ambient opera for orchestra and singers
Music: Ian Davis
Conductor: Petr Kotík
Stage design: David Bazika
Director: Jiří Nekvasil
Performers:
Canticum Ostrava
Jurij Galatenko, sbormistr
Ostravská banda
World premiere, 30’
*commission of the festival
Ephemeral Pulse is a short-scale (30-minute) operatic work for chamber orchestra, singers, and electronics. The text is drawn from Emily Dickinson’s poem “Forever — is composed of Nows —”. The musical material was generated through loosely-structured improvisation which was transcribed, orchestrated, and laid as a bed for the text to be set upon. The compositional process aims to capture and preserve rough-hewn, tentative musical moments and let structure develop organically. Both content and process reflect on the concept of time; its passing, its divisions, and the fleeting / lasting nature of spontaneous decisions.
Ian Davis (1989) was born in New York City and grew up in Fairfield (Connecticut). In 2007 he moved to New York to pursue a bachelor’s degree at New York University. He has recorded, toured, and performed extensively with various bands including his own projects (Relatives, and Ian Davis: Rock Band), and has worked as an orchestral arranger with artists such as Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear), Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead), and Cassandra Jenkins. From 2017 to 2019 he lived in Middletown, Connecticut where he completed a masters degree at Wesleyan University, studying with Paula Matthusen and Tyshawn Sorey. His concert music has been performed by various ensembles including the NYU Percussion Ensemble, The Westerlies, S.E.M. Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, and Ostravská Banda. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY where he works as an educator: teaching music theory and composition classes at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and working as a Teaching Artist in the public school system through the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program. His work is informed by folk music, canon, counterpoint, chance, works by children, graph notation, low-fidelity, and seemingly simple and transparent structural devices.
June 29, 2024
21:00 | Jiří Myron Theatre
Haštal Hapka: Once Everybody's Here (2024) / World premiere
One-act opera for jazz combo, string quartet and ensemble of soloists
Music: Haštal Hapka
Libretto: Vilma Bořkovec, Magda Jiřička Stojowska, Haštal Hapka
Conductor: Patrik Kako
Dramaturgy: Magda Jiřička Stojowska
Stage design: Jakub Peruth
Light design: Judita Mejstříková
Director: Vilma Bořkovec
Performers:
Grandfather: Vladislav Georgiev
Grandmother: Viera Pavlíková
Father: Zbigniew Kalina
Johana: Anežka Matoušková
Peťa: Danny Takieddin
Váňová: Alžběta Vomáčková
Policewoman: Barbora Špačková
Instrumentalists:
Jan Pudlák, keyboards
Jakub Švejnar, Antonín Procházka, drums, percussion
Jan Bára, plucked instruments
Jan Jirucha, trombone / tuba
Martin Debřička, saxophones
Klára Pudláková, double bass
Ostravská banda SQ
World premiere, 40’
In Czech with English subtitles
*commission of the festival
The lazy atmosphere of a very ordinary (perhaps too ordinary) Sunday family lunch is interspersed with grim news from a police investigation into a certain case. Interspersed among the courses, napkins and Coca-Cola caps, a remarkable but heinous act is slowly unfolding. The perpetrator of which is unknown to us, but whose details seep at various intervals into the minds of all the family members. Questions are raised about what it means to be a hero these days, and for whom, and from what fear, or sense of courage heroism springs. The entire feast is watched closely and impassively by the members of the mayor's party, bards called to accompany the action not only with murmurs of approval or disapproval. Not so impassive, however, is the police investigator watching the family.
Haštal Hapka (1997) was born in Prague, and with his love for the city, he will probably stay there forever. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, where he studied classical logic, phonetics and general linguistics. In parallel, he studied composition with Jiří Churáček at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory. After three years, he transferred to the HAMU, where he is under the strict supervision of Slavomir Hořínka. He is an external member of the Prague Philharmonic Choir, where he towers with the other singers in the bass section; he is also employed at the Institute for the Czech Language, where he co-founded a departure from prescriptivist tendencies in orthopoeia; and he has worked extensively with young directors as a composer of film music - All in Order, Potatoes on the Line (International Film Festival in Warsaw), 3 MWh (IFFR in Rotterdam). His compositions or arrangements have been performed by ensembles such as Ensemble Terrible, Orchestr Neoklasik, Jazz Dock Orchestra of the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic, PKF – Prague Philharmonia and others. He is an avid fan of public transport, a superficial dendrologist, vexillologist and cartographer - in general he loves anything connected with wandering around Prague and looking for major fifth chords in its interesting corners.
June 30, 2024
18:30 | Antonín Dvořák Theatre
Ann Cleare: The Little Lives (2020–2022) / Czech premiere
Opera for five singers and chamber ensemble
Music: Ann Cleare
Libretto: A.L. Kennedy
Conductor: Bruno Ferrandis
Stage design: David Bazika
Costume design: Marta Roszkopfová
Director: Jiří Nekvasil
Performers:
Christopher Robson, countertenor (Parkwächter)
Peyee Chen, soprano (Andrea)
Peter Brathwaite, baritone (Paul)
Truike van der Poel, mezzo-soprano (Sarah)
John Pumphrey, tenor (Thomas)
Ostravská banda
Czech premiere, 90’
In English with Czech subtitles
In a Scottish town there is a small pleasant garden. From sunrise to sunset it is unlocked and available as a quiet place for contemplation. One morning four people come to the garden – a local elderly woman, Sarah, a young Englishman on holiday, Paul, and an Irish-German tourist couple, Andrea and Thomas. A strange man, Parkwächter, who is also in the park, locks them in the garden without giving a clear reason why, leading them to make their own assumptions. Tensions rise and truths, pains and desires surface. The work explores the impact of powerful propaganda at a domestic and national level, the tensions between gender and gender roles, the underlying stability of human needs and comfort, the frustrations of young people in the UK, and the progressive and regressive roles of national identity.
Ann Cleare (1983) is an Irish artist working in the areas of concert music, opera, extended sonic environments, and hybrid instrumental design. Her work explores the static and sculptural nature of sound, probing the extremities of timbre, texture, colour, and form. Exploring poetries of communication, transformation, and perception, she creates highly psychological and corporeal sonic spaces that encourage a listener to contemplate the complexity of the lives we exist within and “to hear the world differently”. A recipient of a 2019 Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize, her work has been commissioned and presented by major broadcasters such as the BBC, NPR, ORF, RTÉ, SWR, WDR for festivals such as Gaudeamus Week, The Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, International Music Institute Darmstadt, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, MATA Festival, Taschenopernfestival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and many others. Through working with some of the most progressive musicians of our time, she has established a reputation for creating innovative forms of music, both in its presentation, and within the music itself. She has worked with groups such as Ensemble SurPlus, The Crash Ensemble, JACK Quartet, The Curious Chamber Players, Yarn/Wire, Talea Ensemble, The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, ensemble recherche, Ensemble Garage, Vortex Ensemble, and many others, and soloists such as Carol McGonnell, Bill Schimmel, Benjamin Marks, Patrick Stadler, Richard Haynes, William Lang, Laura Cocks, Lina Andonovska, Samuel Stoll, Callum G’Froerer… Cleare studied at University College Cork, IRCAM, and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. In October 2019, she received an Honorary Doctorate from the National University of Ireland for her contribution to music. She is Assistant Professor of Music and Media Technologies at Trinity College Dublin and is one of the first 40 members of the Young Academy Ireland (YAI) network. Cleare is an artist-in-residence with Crash Ensemble.
