Ezra Pound Le Testament de Villon (1926 version) (excerpts) (UK premiere)
Karlheinz Stockhausen 'Pieta' from Dienstag aus Licht (1990/91) (UK premiere)
Ryan Trecartin CENTER JENNY (2013)
Tim Parkinson Opus 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Time With People (2014)
Sue Tompkins Like Sake (2015) (world premiere) (LCMF commission)
Performers
edges ensemble (Parkinson):
John Aulich, Mira Benjamin, Jorge Boehringer, Eleanor Cully, Beavan Flanagan, Stephen Harvey, Dorothy Lee, Asher Leverton, David Pocknee and James Woods
Pound ensemble:
Jessica Dandy (mezzo), Ben Durrant (tenor), Robert Gildon (baritone), Mike Craddock (bass), Dave Le Prost (bass), Laurence Williams (bass), Lois Au (bassoon), Lucy Railton (cello), Serge Vuille (percussion), Ian Sankey (trombone; cornet de dessus), Vera Pereira (double bass), Georgina McGrath (double bass)
Marco Blaauw flugelhorn (Stockhausen)
Robert Gildon baritone (Pound)
Lore Lixenberg voice (Pound, Stockhausen)
Aisha Orazbayeva violin (Pound)
Christopher Stark conductor (Pound)
Sue Tompkins
In an attempt to shift our perception of what opera can do and be, we present a second instalment of To A New Definition of Opera, in which performance, video art and neglected modernist opera rub shoulders.
Alongside a new commission from British performance artist Sue Tompkins, the night will include composer Tim Parkinson’s apocalyptic anti-opera Time With People performed by edges ensemble and Los Angeles-based artist Ryan Trecartin's dystopian film CENTER JENNY.
The centrepiece of the evening will be the UK premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s celebrated Pieta from Dienstag aus Licht, with the voice of Lore Lixenberg and flugelhorn of Marco Blaauw.
Interlaced throughout the evening will be an extremely rare performance of excerpts from Ezra Pound's troubadour opera about medieval ne'er-do-wells, Le Testament de Villon, which critic Richard Taruskin called 'a modernist triumph'.
Images
1 Still from Ryan Trecartin's CENTER JENNY (2013)
2 Sue Tompkins
3 Ezra Pound and George Antheil. Both performed in the premiere of Le Testament de Villon