Μich nicht

 The Festival is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF)  [www.SNF.org] to enhance the Greek National Opera’s artistic outreach

Mich nicht (Not me) is a short film conceived and directed by Zoe Xanthopoulou, and based on composer Nikos Ioakeim’s work michnicht. in den fremdenstädten (2014). Black and white long takes, portraits of people against the backdrop of deserted places, and parallel stories through poems of Edgar Allan Poe and a narrative of Guy de Maupassant compose a special film about war and loss, featuring the work’s performers.

The work michnicht. in den fremdenstädten (not me. in foreign lands) was written in 2014 for a narrator, a masked singer with monastery bells, clarinet and string quartet, and it was based on poems of Edgar Allan Poe (The City in the Sea, The Sleeper) and a short story of Guy de Maupassant (Deux Amis). It was commissioned and presented in Gent, Belgium, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I. “The baritone, in the role of the summoner of the dead, sings lyrics of Poe, while the narrator, in a parallel universe, reads excerpts from Maupassant’s short story in another language. The musicians also participate through speech contributing thus to the creation of a musico-theatrical mosaic, an elliptic script on death and loss. The title is a reference to Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil’s Threepenny opera, a landmark work of an era quite similar to ours – can we hear the distress signal? The work was recently recorded especially for the filming of Zoe Xanthopoulou’s movieMichnicht”, notes Nikos Ioakeim.

“The work’s original title michnicht. in den fremdenstädten,a reference to Brecht’s Threepenny opera, became an occasion for unlocking a world of images inside me; images with people marching toward a meeting point where the artist-enchanter leads them to an existential glorification that will become a collective memory. A new world is born through associations and references to Macheath from the 1931 film Threepenny opera (directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst) and Polly as a bride, to Poe’s personal register and subjectivity, to annihilated tender feelings like those in Guy de Maupassant’s writings, to Méliès’ “fake skies”, to a Felliniesque landscape between the real and the imaginary, and to expressionistic figures offering a way out from the atrocities of socio-political events through the art. All the above draw inspiration from the elements of the music work”, notes director Zoe Xanthopoulou.

MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND SPORTS

3rd GREEK NATIONAL OPERA ONLINE FESTIVAL

The Music of Language

Short stories

9 December 2020 – 6January 2021

            nationalopera.gr/en, Facebook, YouTube, digitalculture.gov.gr     

The Greek National Opera presents its 3rd Online Festival, titled The Music of Language. The Festival is curated by Giorgos Koumendakis and features five unique short stories. The Festival’s videos will be streamed online from 9 December 2020 to 6 January 2021 and will remain available to the public for 30 days after their premiere. The videos will be streamed online at nationalopera.gr/en, on GNO’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, as well as on the website of the Ministry of Culture and Sports digitalculture.gov.gr. The Festival is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] to enhance the Greek National Opera’s artistic outreach.

The five short films that will be screened as part of GNO’s 3rd Online Festival combine the art of the image with the power of music and narrative language through new readings of music works. The dream and fantasy of Arnold Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht meet the confessions of people in deserted buildings from Nikos Ioakeim’s mesmerizing composition, and the memories of the Woman in Black in Yorgo Sicilianos’ monodrama The Lady in the Moonlight. Tarquinio Merula’s lullaby sung by different mothers in modern-day Athens intertwines with Musical GNOod Mornings, where operatic singing takes a morning TV show by storm. Through all these works, the Festival reveals imaginative ways of transmuting music and language into another form of art through the image, proposing new operatic, inspired film experiences filled with humor and an honest mood of self-sarcasm. The Festival is curated by GNO’s Artistic Director Giorgos Koumendakis.

Giorgos Koumendakis notes: “After the great success of our 1st and 2nd Online Festivals (May-June 2020, September-October 2020), which attracted tens of thousands of viewers across the world, we actively continue with GNO’s 3rd Online Festival. The new Festival is titled The Music of Language and includes five videos, five short films, where music and narrative language acquire a whole new dimension through the art of the image. We made a selection of five music works of different themes and aesthetic, which evolve the way music passes through its digital form to another reality. The Online Festival allows us to be creatively alive, not only in the midst of the pandemic, but also afterwards, as this approach to music works will have an even bigger presence in the future. From 9 December to 6 January, we invite you to enjoy these five special short stories on the screen of your computer, tablet or mobile phone.”