friday 3 april – 9 pm
Teatro Auditorium Manzoni
Mette Edvardsen/Matteo Fargion (N/B/GB)
Penelope Sleeps
opera, italian première
Penelope sleeps is an opera degree zero, conceived by Mette Edvardsen and Matteo Fargion. Here the experimental approach and work with the format of the medium is in question. The relation between voice and music, space and scale are important, but rather than alluding to operatic images, one could think of drawing lines to trace a horizon. The libretto is like an essay which has its own rules. Here different stories and materials mix, they co-exist without creating unity. Essay from the French essayer, means to try, to attempt; opera in Italian means to work, to labour. In this attempt to work, a space opens up. “I work with language as a material, and for years I have been working with questions on writing, thinking of choreography as writing. There is a larger notion of the written, not in opposition to the body or movement, but as an extension of it. Writing means both the text as well as composing with all the elements and materials together in the space, including time and presence.” Dangling on a border somewhere between opera and dreams, Penelope Sleeps makes and unmakes the configurations expected between a women, the other and the world, but it is not about the mythological figure of Penelope, as the title may suggest, although she remains an important figure in the piece. Voice (spoken, sung) and music (harmonium, synthesizer) create an intimate, minimalist world which you are invited to stretch out in.
Mette Edvardsen, norwegian artist living in Brussels and Oslo. Her work is situated within the performing arts field as a choreographer and performer. Although some of her works explore other media or other formats, such as video, books and writing, her interest is always in their relationship to the performing arts as a practice and a situation. With a base in Brussels since 1996 she has worked for several years as a dancer and performer for a number of companies and projects and develops her own work since 2002. She presents her works internationally and continues to develop projects with other artists, both as a collaborator and as a performer. Recent work of Mette Edvardsen are the performances Penelope Sleeps (2019), oslo (2017) for which Matteo Fargion created the music, We to be (2015), No Title (2014), Black (2011), and the ongoing work Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (2010). Together with Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion and Francesca Fargion she created Music For Lectures/ Every word was once an animal (2018). She edited the publication Not Not Nothing (2019) and the book on Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (2019) on the occasion of the osloBIENNALEN 2019. A retrospective of her work was presented at Black Box theatre in Oslo in 2015 and a focus program in MACBA in Barcelona in 2018. She is currently a research fellow at Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
Matteo Fargion is a composer, musician and performer based in London. He made music studies under the guidance of the composer Kevin Volans and Howard Skempton. His interest in contemporary dance began, after seeing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. This experience encouraged him to apply for the International Course for Choreographers and Composers, where he first wrote music for dance, and through which he met the choreographer Jonathan Burrows with whom he has collaborated for more than twenty years. Burrows and Fargion have made a series of 11 duets conceived, choreographed, composed, administrated and performed together, redefining their collaboration on more equal terms and bringing Fargion fulltime onto the stage. Matteo Fargion has written music for theatre for several productions directed by Elmar Goerden and Thomas Ostermeier. He has also collaborated with choreographers including Siobhan Davies, Russell Maliphant, Lynda Gaudreau, Noé Soulier and Mette Edvardsen. He is active as a teacher and is a long-time visiting member of faculty at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. Recent work includes The Solo Piece (2018), a dance solo for himself, writing music and performing in Music For Lectures/ Every word was once an animal (2018) with Mette Edvardsen, Jonathan Burrows and Francesca Fargion, writing music and performing in Claire Croize’s Flowers (we are), and We Have to Dress Gorgeously, a punk opera made with Andrea Spreafico for the Borealis Festival Bergen and the special project with Burrows & guests, Hysterical Furniture (2017).
Angela Hickx, based in London, is a soprano: a versatile singer, experienced in oratorio, theatre, medieval, renaissance, chamber music and recitals with organ, piano and lute. Since embarking on her musical career, she has performed internationally, establishing herself as a specialist in the baroque repertoire. She is a member of a number of leading UK ensembles including The Monteverdi Choir, directed by John Eliot Gardiner, with whom she appears as both a soloist and part of the choir. She is also a member of Ex Cathedra (Jeffrey Skidmore) and Dowland Works (Emma Kirkby). She recently appeared in the Oscar-winning film, The Favourite, alongside Emma Stone and Rachael Weisz, in which she sang Henry Purcell’s Music for a While. She has sung as a soloist (Bach – St Matthew Passion and cantatas with John Eliot Gardiner, St John Passion with Jeffrey Skidmore) in some of the foremost concert venues in the UK and Europe, including the Berlin Philharmonie, Royal Chapel – Palace of Versailles, St John’s Smith Square and Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. In 2016, she sang in a solo recording of Bach’s Cantata BWV 151 with the Monteverdi Choir’s record label Soli Deo Gloria. Recently she played the role of Cupid in John Elliot Gardiner’s production of Handel’s Semele, performing in La Scala.
text Mette Edvardsen
music Matteo Fargion
performed by Mette Edvardsen, Matteo Fargion and Angela Hicks
light and technical support Bruno Pocheron
costumes Anne-Catherine Kunz
subtitling and production support Cillian O’Neill
production Mette Edvardsen/Athome, Manyone & Eva Wilsens
co-production Kaaitheater & Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), BUDA (Kortrijk), Black Box teater (Oslo), Teaterhuset Avant Garden (Trondheim), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), centre chorégraphique national de Caen in Normandie (France), apap-Performing Europe 2020 – a project co-founded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
residency support: Black Box teater (Oslo), MDT (Stockholm), Kaaitheater (Brussels)
supported by: Norsk Kulturråd, Norwegian Artistic Research Program – Oslo National Academy of the Arts