Join soprano Kristina Ammattil as she explores the roles and allegory in contemporary Opera
Building on the impact of Turnage’s Feston and Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, Kristina, a south-Indian soprano, will spotlight bold and brilliant Opera of the past 50 years -new stories, fresh perspectives, and music shaped by today’s world that will define the future of Opera.
Programme:
LOVE AS INNOCENCE
Soprano roles embody innocence as radiant abstraction and vulnerability. Singularly minded Semele vs the blindness of Bess.
G.F. Handel – Endless pleasure [Semele] (4’)
Missy Mazzoli – His Name is Jan [Breaking the Waves] (5’)
LOVE AS DUTY / DEVOTION
Role of duty in love vs devotion as obsession highlighting similarities of both Ilia and Clémence.
W.A. Mozart – Se il padre perdei [Idomeneo] (5.30’)
*Listening excerpt: Orchestral prelude to introduce Saariaho’s sound world
Kaija Saariaho – Non, par Notre Seigneur [L’amour de loin] (3’)
LOVE AS DEFIANCE
The perceived oppressive world both Manon and Agnès live in, and love being their anchor into breaking free, have a voice and add colour to an otherwise bleak world.
*Listening excerpt: Massenet – “Et je sais votre nom” [Manon]
(Francisco Araiza & Edita Gruberova, Vienna 1983)
George Benjamin – What else can you invent [Written on Skin] (4:30’)
MORALITY: GOOD VS EVIL
Moral binaries in traditional opera and contemporary refusal of clarity. There is much emotional certainty in both characters, however, the outcome they experience is vastly different and both are left without closure.
*Listening excerpt: Puccini – Tu, che di gel sei [Turandot] (3’)
Jake Heggie – It’s not the three-hour drive [Dead Man Walking] (5:30’)
LIFE VS DEATH
It almost feels as though Emily’s character is a direct continuation of Sophie’s life and innocence. While Sophie sings in blissful glee in the presence of a depressed Werther, Emily embodies the idea of hindsight and losing everything you love.
Massenet – Frère, voyez!… Du gai soleil [Werther] (4’)
Ned Rorem – Take Me Back [Our Town] (3:30’)
MYTH AND METAPHOR
The allegory of Beauty indulging in pleasure while dismissing Time as an insignificant part of life is a powerful metaphor for a Christian doctrine of morality. Banerjee’s Ganga presents a Hindu myth that simply tells a story, one that elicits worship of the great Goddess of the rover Ganga and her enchanting beauty.
Handel – “Tu del ciel ministro eletto” [Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno] (6’)
Janateel Banerjee – Aho Mahabhisah [Ganga] (3’)
THE WORLD OF FIGARO
Enlightenment optimism vs historical fracture, love under political pressure.
Mozart – Deh vieni, non tardar [Le nozze di Figaro] (3:30’)
Elena Langer – We all want perfection [Figaro Gets a Divorce] (4:30’)