Stephen McNeff - Beyond the Garden - Premiere on 4th September in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Cancarjev dom
Stephen McNeff - Beyond The Garden
Friday, September 4, 2020, at 6.30 pm, Lili Novy Club Pre-concert talk with composer Stephen McNeff
Music: Stephen McNeff
Libretto: Aoife Mannix
Singing soloists: Susan Bickley Ottilia; Katja Konvalinka Klara, Musical direction: Simon Dvoršak Director, set design: Rocc, Costume design: Belinda Radulović
Musicians: Nejc Avbelj , violin; Miha Firšt , double bass; Urška Rihtaršič , harp; Andrej Zupan , clarinet; Petra Vidmar , percussion
Beyond the Garden is a new chamber opera by acclaimed British composer Stephen McNeff on a libretto by Aoife Mannix. She will have her baptismal performance in Slovenia and then tour the Czech Republic.
The libretto story is inspired by the relationship between Alma Mahler and her daughter Manon Gropius, who died at the age of eighteen. The relationship between the characters is complex, ranging from warmly intimate to coldly formal. The older woman remains unchanged, an immigrant locked in her apartment in the mid-1960s in New York City, while the other woman seems to be getting younger. The story goes back to Easter 1934 and almost fades into memory. Did the older woman just imagine the presence of the younger one all the time ...?
Topics explore memory, loss, and regret. How do we shape our past to fit our life narrative, and what if there is a force that forces us to face another truth? The opera addresses the relationships between older and younger people, parents and children, mothers and daughters, as well as the topic of how to deal with great loss.
With the in-depth nature of the work, the opera narrative changes the tempo between seven scenes and offers opportunities for a variety of singing styles, from solo introspective to rather extroverted scenes.
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Co-production: Slovenian Chamber Musical Theater, Opera Povera (Czech Republic), Cankarjev dom Ljubljana