F*Exif II* n 4 < ( 1 , D 2 p i Persona, a new chamber opera based on Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 classic film, composed by Keeril Makan, with direction and libretto by Jay Scheib, previewed in a workshop performance at MIT on October 17. Rome Prize winner Makan and Obie-award winner Scheib — both MIT faculty — audaciously transplanted Persona’s famously provocative and complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty and identity into operatic form. (The fully staged production premiered at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY October 23-24.) Persona stars soprano Amanda Crider, is produced by Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) and conducted by Evan Ziporyn.
Makan and Scheib state, “Our seventy-minute opera is at its core, a duet — but for one. A kind of monodrama with the briefest of interruptions, performed by a sole soprano who sings the role of Alma. Alma is a young nurse who has been assigned to care for actress, Elisabet Vogler, who in the middle of a performance, suddenly ceased to speak and remained sunken utterly in an apparently self-imposed silence.” Silence also plays a leading role in this opera—not just literal silence, but the concept of silence itself. The relationship of sound and silence within the music is presented as an analogue to Bergman’s remarkable use of film as a physical medium.
Learn more at arts.mit.edu
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