If extradimensional space is unrecognizable before our eyes, can we at least hear it? Inspired by the bestseller Warped Passages, Hèctor Parra collaborated with Harvard physicist Lisa Randall to create a chamber opera about hidden universes, the existential urge to explore, the limits of understanding and relational dependencies in the so-called real world.
With the libretto of Hypermusic Prologue, Lisa Randall follows on from her popular science books, which attempt to explain five-dimensional hyperspace in a way that is as easy to understand as possible. At the center of the plot is a scientist who is caught between her love for her partner and her passion for theoretical physics. In the course of the opera, the protagonist enters the fifth dimension, while her partner remains bound to normal space-time.
Hèctor Parra has found a very sensual and energetic musical language for this material, which, thanks to sophisticated psycho-acoustic effects, enables the audience to experience the theoretically complex hyperreality both emotionally and intellectually. The audience is taken on an occasionally bizarre and absurd journey, in the course of which points of contact with parallel worlds can be touched upon, but access to the inner world can also be experienced.
Die einstündige Kammeroper, 2009 vom Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris konzertant- halbszenisch uraufgeführt, erfuhr ihre szenische Weltpremiere in der Regie von Benjamin Schad (Götz-Friedrich-Preisträger 2012). Für die Aufführungen in den Sophiensaelen Berlin (4., 5. und 6. Oktober 2013) und dem Gare du Nord Basel (16., 17. und 18. Oktober 2013) konnte mit Johanna Greulich (Sopran) und Robert Koller (Bariton) eine hochkarätige Sängerbesetzung gewonnen werden. Manuel Nawri dirigiert die acht Instrumentalisten des Zafraan Ensemble, die komplexe Live-Elektronik steuert Wolfgang Heiniger.
