Beth Morrison Projects & VisionIntoArt Invite You to Attend this Summer's Multimedia Opera Premiere

Photos from Recent VisionIntoArt performances: Oceanic Verses at Mass Moca (photos by Jill Steinberg) VisionIntoArt at the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe, Africa. May performances with Cornelius Dufallo's Dream Streets and Paola Prestini's Labyrinth. Film by Carmen Kordas.


If you're having trouble seeing the above video, view it online at vimeo.com

About the Project

Set against the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea, Oceanic Verses follows the stories of four characters united by their desire to unearth and uncover the past. A meditation on fading civilizations, the journey is led by an archaeologist, (improviser Helga Davis) whose investigation of immigration leads her to a Sailor (folksinger Claudio Prima) searching for lost songs; a Peasant (soprano Nancy Allen Lundy) seeking a better life for her future children; and a Soldier (Christopher Burchett) searching for a good meal.

Each of the four characters has a double-an abstraction of his/her essence or inner life-in a film by Ali Hossaini, projected, throughout the performance. These sequences are part of a larger "video environment" that recreates the atmosphere of the Mediterranean and immerses the opera's players and audience in the folkloric landscape that inspired it. Hossaini's contribution amplifies the presence of the main characters while giving Oceanic Verses a broad sense of place that is impossible with a traditional set.

Along with the principals performers and their on-screen counterparts, Oceanic Verses features the 12-piece ensemble NOVUS NY: the contemporary music ensemble of Trinity Wall Street and the 40-person Washington Chorus. The Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy will join the company for the New York premiere. Maestro Julian Wachner conducts.

The piece was commissioned by Carnegie Hall in 2009 and began as an operatic tableau of rituals spanning Prestini's Italian heritage. This shorter concert version of the work paid homage to Italian folk music throughout the ages, from the Salento, Genoa and Sardinia regions of the county. Inspired by five millennia of folk music-and the work of American ethnomusicologist and folklorist Alan Lomax-Prestini's score combines field recordings she made in Salento with reconstructions she undertook of ancient music and original music in which she echoes contemporary Italian singers Fabrizio D'Andre and Robert Licci.

Donna Di Novelli joined the team as Prestini began to enlarge and form the work into an opera. Di Novelli structured the piece by weaving her own original work together with a selection of archetypal Italian texts: from songs and poems written by Vittoria Colonna, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Dante Alighieri and Aleandro Aleardi. The opera is sung in a variety of dialects including Griko, Genoese, and Sardinian.

The Oceanic Verses creative team also includes Emio Greco | PC (Choregraphy), S. Katy Tucker (Video and Projection Design), Vita Tzykun (Costume and Set Design) and Allen Hahn (Lighting Design).

PICTURED: production photo from MassMoCA workshop of OCEANIC VERSES; photo (c) Jill Steinberg

About the Project

Renowned Mexican visual artist Erika Harrsch and acclaimed composer Julian Wachner are creating a live kite/music installation for the River To River Festival, called Inverted Sky, in which banknotes shaped as butterflies will circulate in patterns that represent a vital connective system. Specimen-banknotes of currencies from many countries are created into kites to mimic the delicate beauty of butterflies in migratory flight, reflecting the transformative power of global mobility, and the volatility of currency markets.

By bringing this interactive art project into the public space, Inverted Sky will document how people relate to their own concept of money, when money is placed in a poetic or ludicrous context. A playful appreciation will be derived from the lightness of a kite, givingspace to reflect on the somber heaviness of the worldwide financial events. Scored for single flute and live digital processing, Wachner creates the musical equivalent of a visual kaleidoscope. Each kite, as released into the air, is accompanied by a single melodic thread of music, which increases in complexity and density as the other kites join.