31.01.2011

Minotaur – The Island

First day of rehearsal for Minotaur –The Island. The score, which has music, paintings and instructions by David Young, and text by Margaret Cameron, is very beautiful and very inspiring. This is an example:

Notes.

Minotaur is a place – the island of Minotaur.

Lost—there is a story but that is not our opera.

Through-composed. A continuous thread. No sagging, everything attacca.

With each instruction and movement, attend to the sound, the event density, the distribution of pitch and timbre, the dynamics, attack and decay.

The text in bold is a score for movement.

The music is: —tense —just out of reach —fracturing and breaking into bits —travelling through corridors

The objects are the island, and are moved around the space like flotsam from a shipwreck that is washed ashore.

The things that are explicit—certain stage actions, costumes, words, sounds, objects may not be possible. It is best to concede this. Then to continue to form relationships between what is and what is not possible.

Over time, the work becomes finer, turning to a single thread of listening.

Very excited and at the same time slightly apprehensive about getting into the rehearsal room and working on this gorgeous piece. It’s the second time I have performed in an opera. The first time was equally amazing: I played the artist’s model in an season of La Bohème at the State Theatre, which starred Kiri Te Kanawa. During one of the dress rehearsals I was allowed to watch from the front when I wasn’t on stage and so I sat in the third row and fell in love with opera and music all over again. When Kiri Te Kanawa sang the aria “Mi Chiamono Mimi” I suddenly understood opera in a way I hadn’t before. It was clear to me that she HAD to sing because her emotion was so huge and so deep, that there was no other form of expression that would do. That the combination of music and poetry coming from deep within her, with maximum effort, concentration and commitment, was the only way to truly relate how she felt. It was amazing, and I have rarely felt or seen this again, mostly I think due to the massive scale of opera theatres. Actually I HAVE felt it occasionally from rock singers, for example, Rob Snarski, Sharon Jones, Renee Geyer, Patti Smith, and Tex Perkins, and each time have been overwhelmed in the same way. It is such a TOTAL experience. Transforming.

So, music and text, we of The Minotaur will also need to dig deep.