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Contemporary Opera Berlin |
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TON Music
Liza
Lim Premiere season: 15 March 2008, 15:00 hrs; 16 March 11:00 & 15:00 hrs St. Elisabeth-Kirche, Invalidenstrasse 3, Berlin-Mitte
A coproduction between Zeitgenössische Oper Berlin and Elision Ensemble Brisbane in collaboration with MaerzMusik - Festival of contemporary music/ Berliner Festspiele and the Berlin Artist-in-Residence programme of the DAAD. Ton: German synonym. Interchangeably meaning ‘sound’ or ‘clay’ TON, a ‘Scena for mobile, audience and instrumentalists’ was conceived by the Berlin-based stage director Sabrina Hölzer together with the Australian composer Liza Lim and the fine artist Volker März especially for the St. Elisabeth-Kirche in Berlin-Mitte. This neo-classical church by Karl Friedrich Schinkel was fire-bombed by Allied forces during World-War II and remained a ruin in East Berlin. Since 1999 it has been partially restored with a glass ceiling as a way of reactivating the space as a venue for the arts. TON, consisting of two ‘chapters’ can be visited in its first part as a performance with four musicians of the Australian Elision Ensemble and in its second part, as an instal-lation. The main room of the church covered by a ceiling of glass will be hung with diverse large ‘mobiles’ with spans between two to ten metres wide and comprising hovering sculptural figures by the Berlin-based artist Volker März made out of col-oured clay. The figures will float at the audience’s eye-level, freely moving around the room. The musicians are placed in various niches set at different heights around the church as sounding-sculptures that form their own mobile counterpoint communi-cating with these fragile shapes. The public, regarded as a constituent of the piece itself, is in this work placed together with the musicians and the floating sculptures to create a concerted ‘scene’. The ‘story’ is created in the imaginations of the public as they watch the circling movements of numerous figures. These ‘personages’ appear to come from different contexts yet establish fleeting connections with each other in a to-and-fro dance in the space. The music is organised as a cyclic form in which sounds approach and recede,gradually revealing complete pieces over time. The music also comes into a dialogue with the mobiles, seemingly giving impulses to their movement and becoming part of the fantasy structure that is constructed by the audience.The foundation for this work is a number of different solo pieces by the Australian composer Liza Lim. The reference point for the musical structure is a solo work (weaver-of-fictions) played by the alto Ganassi recorder, an instrument which has a very special dreamy, sensuous quality. Against this, other pieces for tenor Ganassi recorder (the long forgetting), trumpet (Wild winged-one), clarinet (sonorous body) and alto trombone (the well of dreams) build up distinct and different layers of communication with the breath and song of the central piece. During each one-hour performance, the audience can move freely amongst the moving figures of the mobiles. There are some places available to remain seated. As well as the live performances, there is a second chapter of the piece accessable as a sound-room-installation running from 17-24 March 2008, 12:00-18:00 hrs. 3 video-sketches of TON, made by artist Volker Maerz can be viewed at: www.youtube.com, search “Sabrina Hölzer” Images of the church are online at:www.klausblock.de, search “Bauten”, search “St. Elisbeth Kirche” More information at www.maerzmusik.de Information
for further productions of TON: Sabrina
Hölzer, Stage Director and
Daryl Buckley, Artistic Director ELISION
Ensemble
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©
2008 Zeitgenössische Oper Berlin |