Opera-ballet “ARK”. Common Ukrainian-Swiss project of NOVA OPERA group together with Totem Dance Group.
Director: Vlad Troitskyi
Сhoreographer: Oscar Chacon (Switzerland)
Music: Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko
At some point each of us has to build and assemble his Ark. No life and no generation can avoid its flood, everyone is condemned to his own challenges. The great flood of our days is the waves of junk information, trash and fakes that engulfed us. Will we be able to overcome perplexity, gather the most precious and swim out? And what will we grasp out of chaos, what will we take with ourselves, what will we fill our Ark with? A new play by Vlad Troitskyi covers it fully. The director speaks on these grand philosophical matters using body language and opera music. The libretto is based on the most emotional and lyrical part of the Old testament — the Solomon’s Song of Songs.
The ARK opera-ballet is the third part of the biblical opera trilogy (other parts being IYOV opera-requiem and BABYLON opera-circus) created by composers Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko together with the director, Vlad Troitskyi and musicians of NOVA OPERA group. After the premiere in Ukraine in 2015-2017 the first two parts of the trilogy were successfully presented at different European venues including Vienna Philharmonic, Macedonian opera, The Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre, Opera Hall in Lublin etc.
Opera-ballet’s music combines post-minimalism and a new simplicity with allusions to seminal musical symbols of the past (Tchaikovsky, Bach, sampled parts of ancient folk songs) and live electronics, prepared piano and expanded vocal techniques.
Ballet’s director, Vlad Troitskyi is a key figure in contemporary Ukrainian art. Founder of Kyiv DAKH theatre, GOGOLFEST festival and cult ‘DakhaBrakha’ and ‘Dakh Daughters’ bands. His performances are always multilayered in shapes and meanings, and if we trust that the mission of a theatre is to provide a spectator with nourishment for mind and soul, allow him to feel catharsis and cleansing, this place is where one can find genuine performing art.
The music is composed by the representatives of a new generation of Ukrainian composers, Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko, who actively experiment with modern genres of a music theatre (opera-requiem, dreamOpera, opera-horror, trap-opera) together with NOVA OPERA musicians (sopranos: Mariana Holovko and Anna Marych, baritones: Andrey Koshman and Ruslan Kirsh, bass: Yevgeniy Rakhmanin, percussion: Andrey Nadolskyi, cello: Zhanna Marchynska).
Choreographer, Oscar Chacon is a renowned ballet star, representative of the world’s most popular school of modern classic dance, solo-dancer and choreographer of Bejart Ballet Lausanne (Switzerland). Dancers of three generations take part in the performance: ‘classic’ ballerinas, girls under 10 years as well as over 70-year-old dancers will ‘build the Ark’.
Cast:
Maryana Golovko (soprano)
Anna Marych (soprano)
Andrey Koshman (baritone)
Ruslan Kirsh (baritone)
Yevgeniy Rakhmanin (bass)
Zhanna Marchynskaya (cello)
Andrey Nadolskiy (percussion)
Georgiy Potopalskyi (live electronic)
Roman Grygoriv (conductor, guitar, bass)
Illia Razumeiko (grand piano)
Opera-ballet “ARK”:
