opéra le désert mauve
a new experimental opera by composer symon henry
based on the novel le désert mauve by nicole brossard
march 23 + 24 2023 cspace theatre
Doors 7PM, Show 7:30PM Both Nights
Artist Q & A after show on March 24th
“The desert is indescribable. Reality rushes into it, rapid light. The gaze melts. Yet this morning. Very young, I was already crying over humanity. With every new year I could see it dissolving in hope and in violence. (..) Then would come the pink, the rust and the grey among the stones, the mauve and the light of dawn.”
—Nicole Brossard, “Mauve Desert” (1987)
Mélanie, a teenager on a quest for the absolute, criss-crosses the Arizona desert to exorcise fear and reality, hoping to escape the sluggish daily life of her mother’s motel near Tucson. Her meeting with the excessive Angela Parkins will multiply the acts of revolt and pure joy. In the intervals of the narration, there is the threatening presence of “the long man” as the history of the world and science. Such is the story discovered by the translator Maude Laure, a story that captivates her and that she decides to translate after being imbued with the characters, having imagined their dialogues and remakes the landscapes of the disturbing beauty of the desert. As the novel unfolds, the reader first discovers Laure Angstelle’s “Mauve Desert,” followed byMaude Laures’s reflections on its translation, and finally her translation of the story, entitled “Mauve Horizon.”
Following in Maude Laure’s footsteps, Mauve Desert – Mauve The Horizon conveys to the audience a translation of this novel—iconic to the Lesbian and Queer community, and also a landmark in Québécois literature—into my visual soundworld. In this version of “Mauve Desert,” I composed the foundations of an opera project to come by bringing into resonance the poetic imaginations of Nicole Brossard, of the fictional author of the first story—Laure Angstelle—, of the translator Maude Laures and my own sound and visual world, which is at once lyrical, intimate and noisy. I am therefore seeking, in turn, to immerse myself in the characters and to imagine the iridescent harmonic textures of my sound environment, with complex colours, constantly modulating between consonance and rich roughness like the colours of the desert, always similar, always different in the infinite complexity of details.
We invite you to take part in our creative process by sharing your impressions with us after this show, highlighting the culmination of a major stage of transdisciplinary creation, including elements of open form and spatialization thanks to digital lutherie tailored specifically for the project by Alexandre Burton. A final stage of work breaking down the project over time and the staging will see the light of day in the coming years… to be continued!
« Le désert est indescriptible. La réalité s’y engouffre, lumière rapide. Le regard fond. Pourtant ce matin. Très jeune, je pleurais déjà sur l’humanité. À chaque nouvel an, je la voyais se dissoudre dans ll’espoir et la violence. (…)je filais la lumière dans ses mauves et petites lignes qui comme des veines dessinaient un grand arbre de vie dans mon regard. »
― Nicole Brossard, Le Désert Mauve (1987)
Mélanie, une adolescente en quête d’absolu, sillonne le désert de l’Arizona pour exorciser la peur et la réalité, espérant échapper au quotidien lent du motel que dirige sa mère, près de Tucson. Sa rencontre avec l’excessive Angela Parkins multipliera les actes de révolte et de pure joie. Dans les intervalles de la narration, se dresse la présence menaçante de « l’homme long » comme l’histoire du monde et de la science. Tel est le récit que découvre la traductrice Maude Laures, récit qui l’envoûte et qu’elle décide de traduire après s’être imprégnée des personnages, avoir imaginé leurs dialogues et refait les paysages de l’inquiétante beauté du désert.
Suivant les traces de Maude Laures, c’est à une traduction vers le sonore — par l’entremise des partitions musicales graphiques que je crée — que j’aspire à convier les spectateur×rices de ce projet. Dans Désert mauve — un livre à traduire, j’ai composé les bases d’un projet d’opéra en faisant entrer en résonance l’imaginaire poétique de Nicole Brossard, celui de l’auteure fictive du premier récit — Laure Angstelle —, celui de la traductrice Maude Laures et mon propre univers sonore. J’ai donc cherché, à mon tour, à m’imprégner des personnages et à imaginer les textures harmoniques irisées de leur environnement sonore, aux couleurs complexes, modulant constamment entre consonance et riche rugosité à l’image des couleurs du désert, toujours semblables, toujours différentes dans l’infinie complexité des détails.
Nous vous invitons à prendre part au processus de création en nous partageant vos impression après ce spectacle mettant de l’avant l’aboutissement d’une grande étape de création transdisciplinaire, incluant des éléments de forme ouverte et de spatialisation grâce à une lutherie numérique créée sur mesure par Alexandre Burton. Une dernière étape de travail éclatant le projet dans la durée et la mise en scène verra le jour dans les prochaines années… à suivre !
Featuring
Symon Henry, conductor and artistic director
Line Nault, stage director and choreographer
Virginie Mongeau (Mélanie 1), vocal artist and electronics; Elizabeth Lima (Narrator), vocal artist and electronics; Talia Fuchs (Mélanie 2), vocal artist.
Rémy Bélanger de Beauport, cello; Benoît Fortier, horn; Émilie Mouchous, electroacoustic artist.
Alexandre Burton, digital luthier
Symon Henry
An encounter between visual arts, poetry and music presides over the approach of Egypto-québécois composer and sound artist Symon Henry. Leaving aside the conventional writing of notes attached to a staff, the Montrealer’s music is rather read and interpreted from a set of drawings forming what is known as graphic scores. Inhabited by the worlds of composers Cornelius Cardew, Jennifer Walshe and Cecil Taylor, by the sound world of Egyptian diva Oum Kalthoum, then by Cy Twombly’s flowing lines and drawn colours, Henry positions themself in a filiation of the score as a space of precision and freedom, as well as of ambiguity and mixing between canonical genres and influences.
Their works reflect an ever-renewed quest for the de-hierarchization of the composer’s authority in favour of working closely with the performers. Indeed, their scores require great precision from the musicians, but also an extended set of playing techniques (including breath control for wind instruments or exploration of friction for strings, for example) aimed at taking into account the performance personally and intimately. The basics of understanding the scores remain simple and intuitive: the horizontal axis indicates duration and the vertical axis indicates the pitch of a sound, while a dark line calls for a louder sound, a thinner and blurred line, a softer sound. It is therefore to a look in the form of listening, at once curious, generous and intuitive, that the composer invites us.
Une rencontre désirante entre les arts visuels, la musique de concert et la poésie préside à la démarche de l’égypto-québécois·e Symon Henry. Délaissant l’écriture conventionnelle formée de notes accrochées à une portée, sa musique se lit et s’interprète plutôt depuis un ensemble de dessins formant des tableaux sonores. Habité·e des mondes des compositeur·rices Cornelius Cardew, Jennifer Walshe et Cecil Taylor, de l’univers sonore de la diva égyptienne Oum Kalthoum, puis des traits coulants et des couleurs tracées de Cy Twombly, Henry se positionne dans une filiation de la partition comme espace de précision et de liberté, d’ambiguïté et de métissage entre les genres canoniques et les influences. En résultent des propositions lyriques, bruitistes et intimistes mues par une envie de revalorisation de la complexité des interactions entre ses identités — queer, migratoire, amoureuse du bruit du monde.
Ses œuvres témoignent d’une quête sans cesse renouvelée pour la déhiérarchisation de l’autorité de la·du créateur·rice au profit d’un travail de proximité avec les interprètes. En effet, ses partitions demandent une grande précision de la part des musicien·nes, mais appellent également à des techniques de jeu dites non traditionnelles (maîtrise du souffle pour les instruments à vent ou exploration du frottement pour les cordes, par exemple) visant une prise en compte personnelle de l’interprétation. Leurs bases de compréhension demeurent cependant simples : l’axe horizontal indique la durée et l’axe vertical indique la hauteur d’un son, alors qu’un trait foncé appelle un son plus fort, un trait ténu et estompé, un bruit plus doux. C’est donc à un regard en forme d’écoute, à la fois curieux, généreux et intuitif, que nous invite l’artiste.
Photo credit Alexandre Turgeon Dalpé/ Bijuriya.
Talia Fuchs
Talia Fuchs is a New York born, Montréal-based vocalist and theatre artist. Integrating operatic vocal training with popular vocal styles, a theatre background, and improvisational exploration, she creates a unique and captivating performance. An avid performer of contemporary music, she is currently a member of Ensemble Pikama and has worked with Montréal composers such as Noa Haran, Brice Gatinet, and Sarah Rossy. Outside of concert work, she was featured in a performance art piece by artists Chloe Lum and Yannick Desranleau installed in the Musée de Joliette, and participated in a workshop of a new musical, Taxidermy Tim by Lisa Drupsteen, which was set to premiere in April 2020. Most recently, Talia made her compositional debut this year as a part of Montréal’s Nuit Blanche Festival. Always seeking to expand on her craft she continues to participate in workshops with artists such as Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, Meredith Monk, and Kathy Kennedy. She holds a Bachelor of Music from McGill University.
Photo Credits: WOWMI __ OG Photography
Elizabeth Lima
Elizabeth Lima is a vocalist, clarinettist, improviser and composer working in a full range of genres. The centrepiece of her work is the emotional response to sound: the human experience and interconnection shared amongst musicians and with the audience. She creates performances in which traditional and extended techniques are combined with theatrical elements. In 2016, she perfected vocal improvisation with Maggie Nicols and Phil Minton (UK). In 2017 she was selected for the improvisation Montréal-Vancouver exchange, Trading Places organized by Suoni Per Il Popolo, Western Front, Coastal Jazz, Music on Main, NOW Society Present. She performs regularly as an improviser and with ensembles such as Montreal based Land of Kush, conducted by Sam Shalabi (Constellation Records) and Joker : chorale bruitiste, conducted by Joane Hétu (DAME). She is co-founder of the duo Porketche with Gabriel Dharmoo (DAME), performance duo Riot Pousse with Sarah Albu and duo Écureuil with Kayla Milmine (Toronto). In 2018 she co-founds experimental vocal ensemble Phth, who performed at Suoni per il Popolo (Montreal) and NUMUS (Waterloo). Recently, Elizabeth has performed and soloed in Opus Prize winning Opera “À chaque ventre son monstre,” by Gabriel Dharmoo, as well as Jennifer Walshe's XXX Live Nude Girls, live arts production “Mythe" by Mykalle Bielinski and interdisciplinary art performance by Yannick Desranleau and Chloë Lum. She has presented her solo “Lyrebird Motel” at Festival de Musiques Créatives in Jonquière. She offers improvisation workshops to musicians and non musicians alike.
Photo Credit: Sandrick Mathurin
Virginie Mongeau
Soprano Virginie Mongeau holds a Master’s Degree of Music in Classical Voice Performance from the University of Montreal. In September 2020, she won the 3rd Place Prize in the online edition of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition.
Virginie has been an active performer with several self-produced concerts and she collaborates actively with new music composers from Canada. On April 2018, during José Evangelista's series Hommage produced by SMCQ, she received great acclaim for her performance of Evangelista's monodrama La Porte, where she held the main role with accompaniment of percussionist João Catalão.
Since 2015, she performs regularly with the Society of Contemporary Music of Quebec (SMCQ). During the Montreal New Music Festival in February 2019, she was the soprano soloist in Karlhein Stockhausen's Klang, a co-production of SMCQ and Analog Arts from New York. Since November 2019, she’s collaborating as a soloist with Ensemble Mruta Mertsi, conducted by the composer and improvisor André Pappathomas. Besides new music, Virginie continues to perform classical repertoire such as soloist with the choir Anima Musica.
photo credit: Darryl Block
About Nicole Brossard
Born in Montréal in 1943. Poet, novelist and essayist. Nicole Brossard has published more than forty books since 1965. Her work has been widely translated in many languages and among her books translated into English: Mauve Desert, The Aerial Letter, Museum of Bone and Water. She has cofounded and codirected the literary magazine La Barre du Jour (1965-1975), has codirected the film Some American Feminists (1976) and coedited the well acclaimed Anthologie de la poésie des femmes au Québec (1991, 2003) Her work has been influential and acclaimed by many generations. Her last book in translation is Avant Desire (2020) edited by Sina Queyras, Geneviève Robichaud and Erin Wunker.
Brossard has twice been awarded the Governor General’s Award for poetry. She is a member of l’Académie des lettres du Québec. She won the W.O. Mitchell 2003 Prize and, in 2006, she received the Molson Prize of the Canada Council of Arts. In 2019, Nicole Brossard was announced as the Griffin Lifetime Recognition Award recipient. Nicole Brossard writes and lives in Montréal.
photo by Robert Etcheverry.
