Sounds New -

A Fury's Curses - Chamber Opera

Performing:

Lore Lixenberg (mezzo-soprano)

In association with Brunel University.

A Fury’s Curses is an opera-monodrama by John Croft, based on Jean Tardieu’s one woman theatre piece, Les Maledictions d’une Furie with Loré Lixenberg as the Fury. Scored for voice, bass and contrabass flutes, violoncello, percussion, live electronics and electroacoustic sounds, this will be a world premiere. Tardieu’s play presents a relentless denunciation of the human condition and of the god’s who have created such a world of futile suffering.

The music draws on the alternation of rage and lament in the text, creating a sonic world of thundering fulmination and fragile threnody. This new work builds on the composer’s pioneering work with live electronics in order to evoke the Fury’s vacillation between these expressive extremes, creating the chaotic, primordial sonic environment demanded by the play. The electronic treatments include live spectral processing and timbral transformation of a kind that has only very recently become possible, expanding the sounds of the contrabass flute to cataclysmic levels, or drawing out fragile interior sounds that are normally inaudible. The voice of Loré Lixenberg will be at times heard untreated, at other times transformed and multiplied to suggest the supernatural being of the Fury. The structure falls into a number of sections, each exploring different transformations of the voice and instruments according to the varying intensities of the original text: the original short play becomes an extended musical work tracing the text’s most relentless and most meditative dimensions.

Loré Lixenberg (The Fury)
Richard Craig (bass & contrabass flutes)
Robin Michael ('cello)
Simon Limbrick (percussion)
Carl Faia (electronics)
John Croft (conductor)

The performance lasts approximately 50 minutes, and may be followed by a dinner for patrons. Booking for the dinner is available through Turner Contemporary.

A coach trip (at an additional cost) will be organised for this event, leaving from St. Gregory's Centre for Music at 5pm. If you would like to catch the coach, please contact us: admin@soundsnew.org.uk .

An Introduction to Les maledictions d'une furie.

John Croft (b. 1971) studied philosophy and music at the Victoria University of Wellington, and composition and music cognition at the University of Sheffield. He has a PhD from the University of Manchester, where he studied with John Casken. He is currently Senior Lecturer at Brunel University, West London. Examples of his work include la terra lagrimosa...una luce vermiglia (2006), for cello and live electronics, ...ne l'aura che trema (2007) for alto flute and live electronics and mit schwarzem Glanz for viola and live electronics (2010). He also teaches and writes on the philosophy of music.

Born in the UK Loré Lixenberg has performed widely in opera, concert repertoire and music-theatre, and works with many leading composers.

She has performed internationally at many festivals including those of Salzburg, Lucerne, Donaueschingen, Aldeburgh, Witten, Edinburgh and Huddersfield, and at the Wien Modern and Oslo Ultima festivals. She has performed with orchestras and ensembles including the Halle, Tokyo PO, Danish National SO, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, London Sinfonietta, Klanforum Wien, BCMG Ensemble Aventure, Icelandic SO and Danish Royal Opera.

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