OPERATION:ORFEO
A Visual Opera in Three Movements
1993 – 2007 – 2021
02.06.2021 – 05.06.2021
The Playhouse, The Royal Theatre
Right now Operation:Orfeo is sold out at the Royal Theatre, CPH. If the Covid-19 restrictions are eased or lifted altogether, more tickets will be released. Keep an eye on our website.
08.06.2021
The Concert Hall of Aarhus
Right now Operation:Orfeo is sold out at The Concert Hall of Aarhus. If the Covid-19 restrictions are eased or lifted altogether, more tickets will be released. Sign up for the waiting list at the “Buy Ticket” link to the right.
Right now Operation:Orfeo is sold out at the Royal Theatre, CPH and The Concert Hall of Aarhus. If the Covid-19 restrictions are eased or lifted altogether, more tickets will be released. Keep an eye on our website.
Der er på nuværende tidspunkt udsolgt til Operation:Orfeo på Det Kongelige Teater og Musikhuset Aarhus. Hvis Covid-19-restriktionerne lempes eller ophæves helt, vil flere billetter blive frigivet. Hold øje med vores hjemmeside.
Operation:Orfeo is a musical work that draws on the basic principles of visual art. A reconceptualisation of the opera genre. Causal and dramaturgic sequence in libretto and music is replaced by a series of tableaux and compositions informed by purely visual and auditive principles rather than by dramatic modes of narration. The performance is a visual interpretation which comes to rediscover the basic elements of traditional opera.
The myth about Orpheus’ journey to the underworld is not retold in a direct way. Rather, it serves as a dramaturgical device with the classical division of the myth into three parts informing a series of images translated into a contemporary scenic language. It hints at the mythic narrative without ever illustrating it. The three parts correspond with the stages in which the events of the mythic narrative unfold: the descent, the ascent and the loss – visualised in images of light and shadow, flat surface and depth.
The libretto is a sensuous flow of words performed as symphonic a capella singing. Like a glowing poem it dives into the fluid, colourful and shady underworld of the ocean to re-emerge at the Roof of the World in the middle of a death cult being performed.
The music of the performance creates a play of difference through oppositions that entice and illuminate each other: the tenuous and the voluminous, the sporadic and the unifying, the soloist and the chorus.
The performance is simple like a surgical incision and complicated like major surgery.
Duration 80 min. no intermission
