OB-NC is setting up an international symposium centred on libretto as the nucleus or point of departure for new works of contemporary opera, and to examine this from a practical and theoretical point of view.
When & Where?
Barcelona - Sunday 26th of June and Monday 27th of June of 2011
For whom?
When & Where?
Barcelona - Sunday 26th of June and Monday 27th of June of 2011
For whom?
This symposium is addressed principally to professionals from the world of opera, music and theatre:
• Librettos writers, dramaturges, composers, opera directors, stage directors, playwrights, authors, journalists
• Specialists who wish to set up interchanges with and meet new colleagues, and are looking for new stimuli for their own work
• Also for non-specialists who wish to gain a deeper understanding of the
present day creation of opera in Catalonia and other places.
Speakers -librettos writers, composers, dramaturges and specialists- will talk on a specific aspect, with the opportunity for participation from the public at the end of the session.
Speakers -librettos writers, composers, dramaturges and specialists- will talk on a specific aspect, with the opportunity for participation from the public at the end of the session.
Languages?
English with simultaneous translation to Catalan/Castilian.
The symposium counts on the collaboration of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the support of the Goethe-Institut Barcelona, the SGAE, the Sala Beckett-Obrador and other organisations that propose to join in.
English with simultaneous translation to Catalan/Castilian.
The symposium counts on the collaboration of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the support of the Goethe-Institut Barcelona, the SGAE, the Sala Beckett-Obrador and other organisations that propose to join in.
Idea behind the Symposium
The Festival of Pocket Opera , reshaped as a research centre project dedicated to new creation in opera aims to take advantage of the premiere at the Gran Teatre del Liceu of LByron, the new work of Agustí Charles and Marc Rosich, as an opportunity to promote discussion about one of the themes that seem to us of capital importance: the place of the libretto in contemporary opera.
When the characteristic themes of the classical repertoire were undermined in the 20th Century, first shaken by the avant-garde, then the successive European wars and finally by the enormous changes in the composition and musical conception of the fifties and sixties, the text-music relationship became a
crossroads of fertile, and at the same time dramatic, encounters, conflicts and experiments. That was least that could have been expected of a century of monumental changes to human civilization and in which all the arts were called into question.
But if the 20th Century stands out for its traumas and changes to civilization, the 21st promises to stand out even further. The present times of crisis and transformation that we are going through, without our knowing where they are leading, oblige us to reassess opera from its foundations, that is to say, going back to that moment at the turn of the 17th Century when a body of poets, musicians, artists from other disciplines and nobles set out on the tremendous adventure of changing the parameters of what had been until that moment
standard European thought, and inspired by reinvented ideas from classicism, invented opera.
The changes of the present times are affecting the widest spectra of human life. One of the most characteristic areas of change is that of information technology, where a new culture of a never before seen complexity has
developed with its elements of simultaneity, immediacy and multiplication in time and space.
These parameters oblige musicians and dramaturges to ask questions about their work from new and unknown perspectives. The same lack of definition that is rocking Europe and shaking its foundations is also affecting artists and the genre that embodies the complexity of the arts par excellence: the opera.
Could opera perhaps be a metaphor for Europe itself? This desire to respect the complex diversity of cultures, countries, nations and sovereignties, which is the common project of Europe, does it not also correspond to the desire to bring together diverse artistic languages with the aim of finding a synthesis that
transcends them all?
How should we face up to the new needs of humanity in this epoch of change? How to show these changes in their revolutionary essence? How can we deal with emotions and sentiments, until now the raw thematic material of the opera repertoire, without being banal about the abstract, complex, fragmented and
principal defining aspects of the human psyche today? How should we deal with this diversity of different languages and perspectives with the aim of bringing them together in a way that will infatuate us? These are questions that directors ask themselves today when they are mounting works from the canon, and that contemporary composers and writers of librettos have to answer through their own creations.
Opera is a genre that, precisely because of the complexity that defines it, requires structures and conditions that can be found at the present time only in certain European countries, and, amongst these, in countries where German is spoken, and which have done more than others to maintain these structures
and conditions. That is the reason why there are usually dramaturges working whose role it is precisely to pose and answer the questions mentioned above, as well as to match the repertoire to present day sensibilities.
This is the reason why we have invited some specialist to this symposium to explain their work to us, so that all participants can develop together a perspective on the future. We not only wish to give a fresh impetus to those participating directly but also to present day dramaturges and composers as a body. Catalonia at the
present time is producing dramaturgy and new music of great vitality, whose international impact keeps growing. All in all we have felt encouraged to set up this international symposium, counting on the support of various cultural institutions. We would be honoured to be able to count on your attendance.
We consider therefore, that LORD BYRON, the coproduction of the Staatstheater Darmstadt, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, and the Teatros del Canal de Madrid, and the work of two Barcelona artists- Agustí Charles, composer, and Marc Rosich, writer of the libretto – can be a good starting point and ideal stimulus for a debate on the dichotomy text/music.
Toni Rumbau, Dietrich Grosse
Barcelona, January 2011
Barcelona, January 2011
