Michel van der Aa Blank Out

Lucerne Festival
Lucerne
Switzerland
http://e.lucernefestival.ch

A coproduction of Dutch National Opera Amsterdam with LUCERNE FESTIVAL and the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma

Imagine 3D glasses at the opera! The Dutchman Michel van der Aa is not only a composer but also a filmmaker and director. And he combines these various artistic identities in virtuosic Gesamtkunstwerk projects. As, for instance, in his multimedia chamber opera, Blank Out, which was first performed in the spring of 2016 in Amsterdam and is now receiving its Swiss premiere as the start of a van der Aa retrospective for Lucerne’s composer-in-residence. A single singer, the soprano Miah Persson, appears onstage. Opposite her is the baritone Roderick Williams, but he is present only virtually: in a 3D film that blends pre-produced material with live-recorded video sequences. What is reality and what is fiction become harder and harder to distinguish in this tragic story of a mother-son relationship that is based on the life and texts of the South African writer Ingrid Jonker. A major event that combines emotional power with high tech.



Michael van der Aa : Blank Out