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10 days left until the "Io Passion" premiere!

Let's start the countdown:

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Set design of "Io Passion" opera is on stage! Watch one of "secret" pictures taken during the rehearsal:

By the way, here are instructions for the creators from opera's libretto about the stage: "The stage is divided into two areas: upstage and downstage. Downstage is divided into two halves, BOX A and BOX B.

BOX A: Downstage right – the exterior of an early twentieth century house. A Magritte style streetlamp. Upstage right – the interior of a living room that gives directly onto the street. It has an occasional table, armchair (with book), writing-desk and upright chair, mirror, window with blind, front door.

BOX B: Downstage left – the interior of the same living room. Upstage left – the exterior of the same house. The domestic downstage action is exactly mirrored upstage except when the blinds are drawn. We also hear the internal voices of the MAN and the WOMAN amplified offstage."

However, instructions are not rules, especially for real artists!

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In addition to yesterday's post about the Ancient Greek Myth of Io and Zeus, please find here an excerpt from the "Io Passion" libretto: "The myth of Io offers a primitive pre-dramatic representation of the moon-goddness. In ancient rite, the moon was often worshopped as a celestial cow, because the new moon resembled cow-horns. In dramatic ritual, this cow would have sported three colours: white for the new moon, red for the harvest moon, black for the moon when it had waned. These also represent the three phases of the moon-goddess – the virgin, the woman, and the crone…", - as well as N.B. about the stage: "The phases of the moon are indicated above the stage".

How the creative group of "Io Passion" will follow these and other libretto instructions? Follow Wiener Kammeroper new blogposts and attend the premiere on February 10, 2011 :)

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Day by day “Io Passion” production becomes much more detailed and complex. Ongoing stage of preparations is a process which involves all the soloists, theatre director, his assistant, conductor, concertmaster (on stage), as well as other departments that makes their invisible jobs (offstage). Almost all the draft of the production is rehearsed with performers.

“Io Passion” itself tells the story of a woman who is overcome by an unfamiliar sexual passion for a man. She tries to understand this. But the gods and demons whose curiosity has been whetted by her action do not give her any peace. The civilized side of her life becomes even more governed by mysteries. The woman is forced to admit that “we have aroused something that we should have left to slumber.”

British composer Harrison Birtwistle – born in 1934 – was perhaps able to realize in a most compelling way what has always been his creative aspiration: showing how myths are still pervasive in today’s world.

To set up more familiar acquaintance with „Io Passion" opera – please find here a description of the Ancient Greek Myth about Zeus and Io – story that gave incentive to Birtwistle's and Plaice's (libretto author) opus. However, Harrison Birtwistle said once in his interview that most of his "operas and theatre works... usually come from musical ideas in the first place rather than ideas about subject matter."

P.S. Image above - "Jupiter and Io" by Italian painter Antonio da Correggio (1489-1534).

"The Io Passion" on Twitter by Vanessa

Hello! My name is Vanessa.

After attending the Film School in Barcelona, I realized how essential it is for film directors to complement their jobs with a historical and transverse overview of Humanity and Arts. That's why I decided to study also Humanities. My degree gave me the challenge to understand what make us be, nowadays, who we are.

Thanks to the opportunity I got last summer to work at the Salzburgerfestspiele, I could witness several of the rehearsals that took place there. Suddenly I found myself also interested to explore how many points in common and which differences exist between film and theater directing. Although at the end, there's always the same target; to give instructions to connected with the knowledge of the deep and eternal questions of the human being.

To keep this interest in growing as a director, I start this week to attend the rehearsals of "The Io Passion" at the Wiener Kammeroper. Also, during my time with the production I will report on Twitter what it's going on, on the stage and give the chance to the followers to join the steps of a Theatrical play.

Follow us on Twitter.

Liebe Grüße,

Vanessa Segarra Sánchez

The Ana Passion (1)

Hello! My name is Ana. I am an art manager from Vilnius (Lithuania), director of the Independent creative group OPEROMANIJA and Contemporary opera festival NOA (New Opera Action). For the next month I will stay in Vienna, where (thanks to EU programme for young art managers GULLIVER CONNECT) I will be doing my internship in Vienna Chamber Opera.

The title of this blog represents the mix of the name of the production I'm gonna work with (chamber opera "The Io Passion" by UK composer Harrison Birtwistle and libretto author Stephen Plaice), as well as my personal passion for contemporary opera, new art, fresh ideas (=creativity), etc.

During this month I'll try to post here various fresh news, my personal thoughts about contemporary art, insight into opera production development, as well as present various interesting invisible people who are always involved in such process directly from the Vienna Chamber Opera's administration office, concert hall and other theatre's lobbies. Hope this could be interesting to Vienna Chamber Opera blog visitors.

To set up our international acquaintance, here is a short English-Lithuanian dictionary of main musical/opera terms :)

English-Lithuanian:
Opera - opera
Chamber opera - kamerinė opera
Contemporary opera - šiuolaikinė opera
Theatre - teatras
Premiere - premjera
Libretto author - libreto autorius
Composer - kompozitorius
Theatre director - režisierius
Conductor - dirigentas
Soloist - solistas
Orchestra - orkestras
Choir - choras

Io PasSion auf Facebook

Besuchen Sie Io PasSion auf Facebook und erfahren Sie mehr über THE IO PASSION von Harrison Birtwistle an der Wiener Kammeroper - Premiere der Neuproduktion am 10.2.2011.