“He was alive just a second ago / And now they say he is no more”. Great Open Eyes, a new chamber opera with music by Tyrolean composer Manuel Zwerger, takes an innovative approach to its subject: the grief of parents at the loss of a child, based on themes from Henrik Ibsen and real-life accounts.
When you think of interactive art forms, opera may not be the first thing that comes to mind. In the collective mind, opera is more associated with melodrama, elaborate costumes and long-winded arias than with audience participation. However, a young production company is trying, piece by piece, to change that image.
Opera, by and for the people
Civic Opera Creations, founded in Vienna in 2020, seeks to establish opera as a representative art form in the 21st century. In keeping with this aim, together with Theater Münster, the production company commissioned the chamber opera Great Open Eyes. The opera draws inspiration from Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf, in which the relationship between a husband and wife begins to show cracks after the death of their son. However, it’s more than a mere Ibsen adaptation: in a two-year process, the piece was developed in cooperation with grieving parents, counselors, and artists from Münster and Vienna – a kind of creative crowdsourcing. Zwerger, librettist Carolyn Amann, and director Carmen C. Kruse have woven the characters from Henrik Ibsen’s play together with the real-life stories of the interviewees, bringing the experience of grief, in its many facets, home to the audience.
The creators describe the opera as “modular”, adaptable to various performance spaces, but there’s more: the homepage invites individuals to be part of the creative process, as well as offering communities the opportunity to stage a co-production with the company, involving local musicians and residents. In short, every new staging of the opera is uniquely embedded in its community.
Great Open Eyes, a finalist at the OPER.A 20.21 FRINGE competition, will premiere at the Kleines Haus in Münster on May 13th, with further performances through June.
Great Open Eyes – performances:
- May 13 (premiere, sold out); May 18
- June 3, 5, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 21
Philip Yaeger