Love under a microscope – Chaya Czernowin

02 Chaya Czernowin CR Christopher Mc Intosh

Love under the Microscope

From life on the front line to the intimacies of love: Chaya Czernowin’s new opera Heart Chamber presents a huge tonal shift from the subject matter of her last project for the stage.

Infinite Now, which premiered with huge success at Opera Vlaanderen in Ghent and Antwerp in 2017, took as its basis the short story Homecoming by Chinese writer Can Xue and Luk Perceval’s play Front – in turn based on Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. In contrast, her new opera, which will be premiered on 15 November 2019 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, is a microscopic examination of the beginning of love.

The opera is a series of eight ‘close-ups‘ for which Chaya Czernowin wrote the libretto herself. The composer describes the work as “a grand opera of the smallest moments, the smallest physical and psychic changes which push two strangers towards or away from each other as they embark on a transformative path which one cannot envision.” Heart Chamber is focused on the blossoming of an intense romantic connection between two people. “Musically, Heart Chamber is all about the voice, about using the voice, about communicating through the voice.” The two unnamed protagonists, sung by a soprano and baritone, are joined by a multitude of voices. A contralto and countertenor, as well as a recorded voice, dramatise the protagonist’s internal dialogue. These internal and external voices both act independently and interact with each other. The solo voices are occasionally interrupted by a choir, which symbolises the world of dreams.

“The soprano and the baritone might dialogue with each other while their internal voices swirl around, creating a subterranean space that lays an internal landscape bare. The whole conversation can take the form of a stream of consciousness, or of a song between the two internal voices, while the external voices are also conversing,” writes the composer.

For the premiere production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, directed by Claus Guth, the roles of the lovers will be taken by Dietrich Henschel und Patrizia Ciofi, joined by soloists Noa Frenkel and Terry Wey as well as vocal artist Frauke Aulbert. Johannes Kalitzke will conduct the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, augmented by Ensemble Nikel and joined by a mixed choir of 16 singers. The composer has been working in close cooperation with the SWR Experimentalstudio Freiburg to develop the unique electronics for this project. “The new opera will be like going home: home to intimacy and the psychological realm,” says Chaya Czernowin. “Infinite Now is so huge; it is really my view on the world. The new opera returns to a very personal voice.”

Prune Hernaïz, 2019

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