A lot of this project rests on a method of fragmentation. Adapting an opera to a different medium yet still trying to retain the communication of opera is a challenge.

We found out that a good way to go about this would be cut a number of scenes out of the opera Pelleas et Melisande by Claude Debussy, and start cutting in those.

The next step was the stepover. When the audioplay fragments were small enough to capture in one thought we started to imagine objects that could fit a character in that moment. Singers became nutcrackers. Time was given form, a form of a candlestick. A woman was to become an old fashioned slidescreen.

Now it was time to put our cast and objects into play, to find back the essence of the moments we had fragmented. We experimented in a set condition, a space that was passive, sterile. The objects were the changeable factor. This almost worked.

We went to the utopian formal cityscape of Bijlmer-Amsterdam and put our pieces into play on different locations, each location representing a fragment our fragmented music.

This was more interesting. Through fotography we captured moments once again, in the same fashion as the fragmented sound in the beginning.

We were asked to give a lecture on the subject in the Llyods hotel. We decided not to present what we had done, but to try and find a place for our next step, using the presentation to find a new motive for yet again adapting our found medium.

Our following testing ground was to be the Oerol festival on the island of Terschelling. Here we added up different steps. We searched out 5 essential locations, each fit to the task of allowing object and character to present themselves to a public. We chose route, timing, sequence. We made nothing. We accepted the space and analyzed it's potential to fit into the play as it was. This was crucial. By actually not making anything, but analyzing quite critically, the project worked. It showed the opera as we made for what it was.

The Melkweg in Amsterdam was a papperazi shoot, whereby the makers, Paul Oomen and I put ourselves in the position of showing our methods, partially. We used space in small ways. We made frames with duct tape and once again put our cast into play. Now we were the play and the pieces were our script. Our audience was drunk and happy, the scenes were chaotic and held no significant importance. The photographers were our beacon. They gave us importance. It was a chaotic moment set in a chaotic condition. It yielded good images but it did not capture the essence of a new medium readily. Maybe it was point to reflect.

Theater Kikker in Utrecht was the setting of Toute Seule. One persona remained in the adaptation and all the prior information used in our research thusfar was compressed into five small unobtrusive publically set decors. The moments were small, the lead singer doing once again small fragments, taken from an enormous library of acquired information and material.

The composer and I said to continue this project one day. To make an end to our research. This day is yet to come.

 

Fotography by Nienke Berghuis, Ketil Avitsland. Film by Amber Beernink, Antonis Pittas

With thanks to AHK amsterdam, AvB amsterdam, Marijke Hoogenboom, Pierre Audi, YO! Opera werkplaats, Melkweg Amsterdam, theater Kikker Utrecht, Oerol festival, Lloyds Hotel Amsterdam, Jord den Hollander, Chiel Kattenbelt, Waltermaashuis, Wim Haveman.

the pelleas et melisande adaptations with Paul Oomen