Operas You Have Never Seen! 21st Century Music Theatre and Futuristic Sounds with Stunt Performances

Publikováno: 22.5.2024

Ostrava, May 22, 2024 – The seventh biennial of the international festival NODO / New Opera Days Ostrava will bring a series of world and Czech opera premieres, taking place over the last five days of June at various venues in Ostrava: Jiří Myron Theatre, Antonín Dvořák Theatre, Puppet Theatre, and Tatran Sports Hall. Organized by the Ostrava Center for New Music and the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, the festival will feature seven productions reflecting current artistic expressions. A special position in the program is occupied by the opera Russolo’s Bitter End, a tribute to the futurist artist Luigi Russolo, featuring futuristic noise instruments called intonarumori. Another unique production is the opera performance IMPACT, which will include stunt actions. These performances will be presented on Friday, June 28, outside traditional opera theaters.

Collaboration with Vienna and Dublin

NODO kicks off with Passion by Pascal Dusapin, a new production in co-production with Neue Oper Wien (June 26). For the Year of Czech Music, the festival commissioned two operas by Czech composers – František Chaloupka (June 27) and Haštal Hapka. New Yorker Ian Davis and Haštal Hapka will premiere their first operas (June 29). Irish composer and technologist from Trinity College Dublin, Ann Cleare, with her work The Little Lives, presented at the Munich Biennale, will be working in the Czech Republic for the first time (June 30). NODO hosts production teams, soloists, and conductors from Europe and the USA, as well as international resident ensembles: Ostravská banda, members of ONO – Ostrava New Orchestra, and the Canticum Ostrava choir led by Jurij Galatenko.

A New Concept of Human Fragility

The first performance of the third festival evening (June 28) will be the unique artistic-stunt project IMPACT by the creative duo (Amir Shpilman – music, Shiran Eliaserov – choreography) and will take place in the Tatran Sports Hall. IMPACT represents an extraordinary fusion of music, movement, and stunts, not just as a spectacular show but revealing the fragility of the human body and soul, seeking to connect the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of a person. The essential theme is the processing and overcoming of trauma, which can result from extreme circumstances in life. Music and movement meet here in symbiosis, and their close relationship is intertwined innovatively. "One of our goals is to challenge the audience to reconsider their perception of the possibilities of the human body and mind. We are pleased that the world premiere of the complete version of this opera will take place at the NODO festival, which celebrates pioneering art and brings new perspectives to the opera world," adds the creative duo Shpilman and Eliaserov.

The first phase of the project, which Shpilman and Eliaserov began working on in 2019, was supported by prestigious institutions such as DockART and the NEUSTART CULTUR program of the Federal Government. Under the duo's unconventional stage directing, where Shiran's vigorous choreography is immersed with Amir's epic music score, soprano Katsiaryna Zhynhiarouskaya, stuntwoman and artist Helga Wretman, and stunt riggers Alexander Kusmak and Raffael Armbruster deliver heart-pounding performances. The music and setting will be brought to life by the international Ostravská banda orchestra and the Canticum Ostrava choir, foley sounds craftsmanship and live electronics with sound artist Anton Kondratov under the baton of conductor Lilianna Krych.

Tribute to Futurist Pioneer Luigi Russolo

The second opera of the evening on June 28 will be Russolo’s Bitter End. It is a tribute to one of the most important figures of the Futurist movement, Luigi Russolo, and his revolutionary manifesto The Art of Noise. In his 1913 work, Russolo presents ideas that were to forever change the world of music. His vision rejected traditional forms and academic procedures, instead calling for the opening of the musical world to new, unheard sounds of modern machines and cities, reflecting the social and technological developments of the new era. Russolo also created new instruments, called intonarumori or noise intoners. These instruments were to bring the sounds of internal combustion engines, industrial operations, and extreme natural phenomena (storms or avalanches) into music to enrich the palette of overused and exhausted sounds of the past.

After two world wars, most of the original intonarumori were destroyed, and the ideas of the Futurists fell into oblivion for many years. It was not until the 1970s that artists involved in the industrial and noise scene revived these efforts. The opera Russolo’s Bitter End returns to the basics and revives Futurist concepts. A set of various "noise intoners" will return to the stage, and the main character of the fictional story will be Luigi Russolo himself (played by Miroslav Paulíček). On his journey to divine noise, he encounters modern technology, sound imitations in Rossini's opera, and the battle frenzy of Beethoven's compositions. His guides will be the cat Giacomo (Petr Ferenc) and the housekeeper Georgette (Lucie Zachovalová). The last character will be an Angel, played by the only performing singer Pavla Radostová. The musical realization will be handled by experienced intonarumori players such as Luciano Chessa (founder of the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners), Anna Clementi, and Werner Durand, in collaboration with the constructor of Futurist instruments Jan Kolář and pianist Miroslav Beinhauer. The co-author of the opera’s libretto is Petr Rezek (1948–2022), a Czech philosopher and opera expert. The director of the production is Petr Odo Macháček, and the production is managed by Petr Studený. 

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