May 31 sees the Italian premiere of Michel van der Aa’s chamber opera for soprano and 3D film Blank Out at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome. The one-off performance forms part of Teatro dell’opera di Roma’s Fast Forward Festival, and will be sung by Miah Persson.
It follows a highly successful and sold-out world premiere run at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. ‘Blank Out’ was praised as ‘unusually beautiful’ (Mischa Spel, NRC) and ‘wonderfully fluent and effective’ (Andrew Clements, The Guardian). Frederik Bernsten (Trouw) wrote that the work shows that ‘Van der Aa is going from strength to strength and is refining his theatrical palette on the firm foundation of his musical idiom.’
‘Blank Out’ is based upon the life and work of Ingrid Jonker. Sometimes described as the “South African Sylvia Plath,” Jonker was a brilliant poet who wrote against the apartheid regime, but whose traumatic and troubled life led to her suicide at 31 in the sea off Cape Town. ‘Blank Out’ uses the intersection of live action and 3D video to explore the nature of memory and the effects of trauma. The Swedish soprano Miah Persson appears on stage as a lone woman dealing with a disturbing event in her past. She is accompanied on film by the baritone Roderick Williams, and on the work’s electronic soundtrack by the Nederlands Kamerkoor.
Tickets for the Rome performance may be obtained from TicketOne.it. Blank Out is a co-commission of Dutch National Opera with the Lucerne Festival and Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and will tour internationally next season.