När blir sångaren konstnär
(2025)
author(s): Martin Hellström
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
When does the singer become an artist?
We ran an opera laboratory at the Department of Opera at Stockholm University of the Arts, during the years 2017-2020.
With the searchlight focused on the creativity of the singer, we wanted to explore the borderland between the rehearsed and the spontaneous, in the art of performing opera.
Our basic questions were:
-when does the performance of the opera singer, which requires a high level of technical perfection, open up towards the unpredictable, creative moment?
-Where is the border line between interpretation and improvisation, does it even exist?
We commissioned a mini-opera to use as working material;Camilles irrfärder & äventyr, composed by Petter Ekman to a libretto by Tuvalisa Rangström. Windows for improvisation were included in the score, where the performers can play with text, rythm, melody or structure in different ways. In the work we alternated between artistic experiments and reflection. The ensemble reflected on how the different games and methods opened or closed the creative flow, and how the improvisations affected the performers' relationship to the material. A parallel focus was how the singers were inspired to change or expand their voices. We have found new methods in the work of developing the creative ability and force of the opera singer. We have applied the methods in different ways in higher education for Opera singers, developing new pedagogic approaches in the process.
This is not my U******E: The use of film and A/V elements as a pivot role in contemporary opera.
(2025)
author(s): Massimiliano Vizzini
published in: Codarts
This research explores the integration of film as a dramaturgical element within contemporary opera, with a specific focus on its role in shaping narrative, character development, and audience perception. Over the course of two years, I have investigated the compositional and theatrical possibilities that emerge when opera, A/V elements and film interact, aiming to expand the expressive potential of these mediums.
Structured in three different cycles, this paper examines the evolving relationship between live musical performance, electronic music composition, and visual storytelling. Through a combination of desk research, artistic experimentation, and practical composition—drawing insights from the creative processes of composers such as Michel van der Aa, Richard Ayres, Sivan Eldar, and others—this research highlights the challenges and opportunities of hybrid opera-film formats. The findings demonstrate that film can serve not only as an aesthetic addition but as a fundamental component of dramaturgy, capable of deepening character psychology and reinforcing musical structures. Additionally, the research reveals the complexities of balancing digital and organic elements in opera, contributing to a broader understanding of contemporary music-theater composition.
Through this process, I gave myself the freedom to experiment as much as possible and learn by observing from composers and artists who stimulated and inspired my creativity.
As a result, this paper has culminated in the development of This is not my U******E (2024-2025), a new opera production for soprano, baritone, sinfonietta and A/V elements.
A teatro dai Secco Suardo
(2025)
author(s): Irene Luraschi
published in: KC Research Portal
In Bergamo, a small city in Northern Italy, in 1687 a new theatre was opened: the Teatro Secco Suardo, the only example of “teatro impresariale” that existed in this city. Its story is full of interest and allows us to observe a glimpse of the musical and cultural life of a provincial city in the period of Venetian domination and the resulting cultural influence. For this reason, I felt the need to narrate the story of this place in my own way, trying to combine the historical narration of facts and the discovery of music that was brought to life in our theatre. The play I wrote includes both real and fictional characters and develops following the path of historical facts but with some dramatic escamotages. The music plays two different roles, on one side accompanying the story as a sort of comment, and on the other, showing a glimpse of the "behind the scenes" of the work of the musicians. All the music is extracted and selected from the five operas that took place in the Teatro by Domenico Gabrielli, Marcantonio Ziani, Antonio Sartorio and Francesco Ballarotti, all composers of the Venetian area. The aim and the message of the play is to show the sometimes difficult attempts of people to bring cultural initiatives and spaces in smaller and provincial cities. And I hope that my play will be an example of this drive toward cultural vibrancy, with a future performance by the connection with local theatre groups.
Composition strategies for the creation of science-based interdisciplinary and collaborative music-theatre
(2024)
author(s): Daniel Blanco Albert
published in: Birmingham City University
The practice-based PhD research project comprises the development and application of composition strategies and techniques generated through interdisciplinary collaboration to integrate elements and ideas from non-sonic disciplines into the musical discourse of new music-theatre works, specifically opera. I explore mechanisms of mapping and association that engage with both the specific subject matter of each piece and the creative collaborative environment in which they are created, thus generating different compositional resources that I use to inform the creative process. By using mapping techniques, I can deeply engage and communicate a subject matter on different levels in the musical composition.
The framework for this research is the intertwining of art and science on a variety of levels from a music compositional perspective. Within this framework, I explored the integration of knowledge and data from the natural and social sciences to inform the composition of four science-based music-theatre works: In response to Naum Gabo: Linear Construction in Space No. 1 (2020), Autohoodening: The Rise of Captain Swing (2021), The Flowering Desert (2022), and TRAPPIST-1 (2023).
With this approach, I aim to closely link these works with their particular subject matter instead of being composed based just on my personal musical taste. By consistently and cohesively applying the strategies and techniques explored in this research, the outcome is not creating music about science or music inspired by science, but, instead, music embedded with science in which the scientific data and knowledge inform the composition decisions. The subject matter is therefore intertwined within the musical discourse, its performativity and theatricality, and its relationship with the other disciplines and collaborators involved in the creation of these music-theatre works.
Den gudomliga läckan - tractatus papyrus
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): PAN
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Den gudomliga läckan - tractatus papyrus är en slags operaföreställning som ingick i projektet Paper Music som genomfördes i november 2022 i Mölndal.
Glories to Nothingness
(last edited: 2018)
author(s): Elisabeth Laasonen Belgrano, Björn Ross
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
GLORIES TO NOTHINGNESS
SORROW. MADNESS. NOTHING.
A voice. A gesture.
A beginning. An experiment. A sketch.
A becoming.
... based on the story of a singer’s performance of paradoxes and passions
in 17th century Venice.
... based on a singer’s research – performed in the 21st century – about the Art of Performing Everything and Nothing.
GLORIES TO NOTHINGNESS is an artistic research project investigating performative acts of moving between Vocalizing ≈ Articulating ≈ Mattering ≈ Trusting.
The research question: How to perform trust?
Every movement, utterance, projection and articulation is consciously exploring and honoring Nothingness as an idea and a concept much debated at the time when the first public opera productions were performed in Venice around 1640. Based on a performative research approach and new materialist theories, performance acts are methodologically diffracted through musical fragments composed by Luigi Rossi (c. 1597 – 1653), Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) and Francesco Sacrati (1605-1650); through selected poems from the volume Le Glorie della signora Anna Renzi romana (Venice, 1641); through thoughts entangled with figures such as RESISTANCE, VULNERABILITY and TRUST; through the practice of exploring force and form as every day performative acts.
Elisabeth Belgrano
vocal projections / performance
Björn Ross
visual projections / scenography
Den gudomliga läckan - tractatus papyrus är en slags operaföreställning som ingick i projektet Paper Music som genomfördes i november 2022 i Mölndal.open exposition comments (0)