Mus­rar­ope­ra

Jury State­ment

“The locus of this work, Mus­ra­ra has seen cen­tu­ries of con­flict and coope­ra­ti­on, dis­cord and harm­o­ny, con­flict and coexis­tence. Through their deep­ly rese­ar­ched, par­ti­ci­pa­to­ry pro­cess, the crea­ti­ve team has craf­ted a sen­si­ti­ve and mul­ti­laye­red approach which takes on this palim­psest and reve­als its mul­ti­ple truths. This is the power of artis­tic expres­si­on: to allow us to see bey­ond the rhe­to­ric. In this pie­ce, the­re are no pas­si­ve obser­vers. Ever­yo­ne is impli­ca­ted, ever­yo­ne is part or the problem/​solution. We’re all in it tog­e­ther.”

(Limor Tomer for the Jury Mem­bers of the 2018 edi­ti­on of Music­Thea­t­re­NOW com­pe­ti­ti­on)

MUSRAROPERA is a mobi­le radio­pho­nic ope­ra, that had been con­cei­ved at the city quar­ter of
Mus­ra­ra in Jerusalem/​Israel by an invi­ta­ti­on to the Mus­ra­ra Mix Fes­ti­val 2018.
Mus­ra­ra is an extre­me­ly con­tro­ver­si­al area, in a con­text of a con­tro­ver­si­al city and coun­try within
the Midd­le East. The quar­ter was loca­ted at the for­mer bor­der­line bet­ween Isra­el and Jor­dan in the
war of 1967. Nowa­days it tou­ch­es the area next to Jaf­fa street, with its shops, bars and cafés, the
Pal­es­ti­ni­an inha­bi­ted area of Damas­kus Gate and the Jewish ultra­or­tho­dox quar­ter Mea Shea­rim.
The old hou­ses in Ara­bic style, built by the for­mer wealt­hy Pal­es­ti­ni­an upper class, have then after
they left in the 60ies, been inha­bi­ted by peo­p­le of very dif­fe­rent cul­tu­ral, reli­gious and poli­ti­cal
back­grounds, kee­ping the explo­si­ve coexis­tence of the past in moti­on.
The future is uncer­tain, this is clear. It is con­s­truc­ted by future sto­ries to come. In the post-truth time
we stra­te­gi­cal­ly place a mobi­le pre-truth ope­ra: by crea­ting an artis­tic dia­lo­gue of sto­ries and truths
in speech and music, we chan­ge not only the future but as well the (under­stan­ding of) the past.
Pre­sent is the moment when we have the time frame and power to make trans­for­ma­ti­on hap­pen.
Theat­re and per­for­mance are a con­cre­te way to check what we don’t know and how (per­so­nal and
coll­ec­ti­ve) histo­ry could be per­for­med. It is the fic­ti­ve rehear­sal and mas­ter trai­ning of trans­forming
the uncer­tain pre­sent into a wis­hed future world. The pre­sent is show­ing us what has not been done
in the last cen­tu­ry. The unba­lan­ce bet­ween glo­bal north and glo­bal south, expor­ted wars and
Euro­cen­tric per­spec­ti­ve is revol­ving and will not cea­se in the near future. It will be deci­ded by our
acts rou­ted in a wider dis­cour­se around all near neigh­bour­hoods, espe­ci­al­ly around the
Medi­ter­ra­ne­an. Jeru­sa­lem has in this con­text a sym­bo­lic posi­ti­on con­nec­ting the cul­tu­ral iden­ti­ty,
sym­bo­lic pre­sent and uncer­tain pos­si­ble futures of a pre­cious coll­ec­ti­vi­ty.
Start­ing from this point the sto­ry­line of the ope­ra are the voices of the inha­bi­tants of Mus­ra­ra and
their visi­ons of the future. The inter­views are the ground of the pie­ce, done by us with neigh­bours of
dif­fe­rent gene­ra­ti­ons, gen­der, count­ries, reli­gi­ons, eco­no­mic­al and cul­tu­ral back­grounds. They are
now and then accom­pa­nied or inter­rupt­ed by joyful Pal­es­ti­ni­an kids spea­king in Ara­bic who
con­stant­ly try to catch atten­ti­on and crea­te a con­nec­tion, bet­ween here and the­re, bet­ween the past
and the future. The idea is to lea­ve the expl­ana­ti­ons of the past behind and request a posi­ti­on and
open­ness towards what could beco­me. The musi­cal spe­ci­fi­ci­ties of each voice are com­po­sed and
mel­ted into a fic­ti­ve coll­ec­ti­ve choir reve­al­ing the har­mo­nies and dis­so­nan­ces. The con­tra­dic­tions of
dif­fe­rent posi­ti­ons are not evi­dent at the first sight, but reve­al its power at a con­cen­tra­ted and deeper
lis­tening. The con­flicts of tho­se peo­p­le appar­ent­ly living peaceful­ly tog­e­ther appear when the
nar­ra­ti­ons of the past and the future, offer insights of their visi­ons of how the world should or could
be. Pla­ced next to each other, in syn­ch or in oppo­si­ti­on, quiet­ly, loud, occu­py­ing acou­stic spaces,
they beco­me a con­stant beat of living dis­pu­te.
The minia­tu­re-orches­tra con­sis­ting of three musi­ci­ans (non-seman­tic voice, cla­ri­net and dou­ble
bass) moves though the streets and is cap­tu­red live and com­po­sed elec­tro­ni­cal­ly into a big cast. Via
radio trans­mit­ters and mobi­le pho­nes the audi­ence recei­ves the music and nar­ra­ti­ve voice mix
while moving through the area. The fina­le hap­pens at an open soc­cer­field, whe­re games and fights
are play­ed, one wish against ano­ther, still fri­end­ly, still exhaus­ting, tog­e­ther and playful.
Mus­rar­ope­ra pro­jects visi­ons into the future recur­ring to the old struc­tures of the ope­ra, full of
con­flicts, emo­ti­ons and pathos. The pie­ce trans­forms the for­mat into a con­tai­ner of nowa­days voices
con­stant­ly adap­ting to its envi­ron­ment, absor­bing its colours and qua­li­ties. Artis­ti­cal­ly it cros­ses the
bor­ders of the for­mat ope­ning aes­the­tic and poli­ti­cal dis­cus­sion by sta­ging the hete­ro­gen­ei­ty of the
wider neigh­bour­hood around the Medi­ter­ra­ne­an and its count­ries.
In a fur­ther idea the site spe­ci­fic­ness of the pie­ce absorbs as well the local voices and con­text whe­re
it will be staged, blen­ding dif­fe­rent rea­li­ties tog­e­ther to under­line the rela­ti­ons of tho­se places,
cul­tures and future visi­ons with the sym­bo­lic area of Mus­ra­ra.

SCORE

Mus­rar­ope­ra is not a usu­al ope­ra fol­lo­wing a fixed score. The two struc­tu­ring per­for­mers of
sound­ing situa­tions con­stant­ly act and react to each others artis­tic decis­i­on. Still the musi­cal
com­po­si­ti­on fol­low spe­ci­fic rules.
The for­mal con­cern in the com­po­si­ti­on is to com­bi­ne dra­ma, side­spe­ci­fic­ness, nowa­days tech­no­lo­gy
and con­tem­po­rar­i­ne­ss with heri­ta­ge, tra­di­ti­on, dra­ma, pathos, lyri­cism, the thea­tri­cal stage.
The pie­ce is struc­tu­red in three major parts, an ouver­tu­re, the walk through the quar­ter and a
sta­tio­na­ry coll­ec­ti­ve fina­le. In the wal­king part, the most influ­en­ti­al artis­tic decis­i­on is the urge and
visi­on to use side­spe­ci­fic­ness as a plat­form for sta­ging an artis­tic work, spe­ci­fi­cal­ly an ope­ra.
Bin­ding the ori­gi­nal inter­view mate­ri­al to its musi­cal­i­sa­ti­on, we pushed the musi­cal- towards a
mobi­le com­po­si­ti­on, evo­king in all aspects (stage, text and music) an authen­tic repre­sen­ta­ti­on of the
real. We want to stage and con­nect the embo­dy­m­ent of the truth by invol­ving the real
neigh­bour­hood, the space as well as the peo­p­le expres­sing their rea­li­ties and con­vic­tions (con­cerns,
opi­ni­ons, situa­tions, dreams) as phy­si­cal pre­sence or (in the Jeru­sa­lem ver­si­on) with their voices.
Their ori­gi­na­ry mate­ri­al, con­tent- and sound­wi­se, beco­mes the libret­to which is inter­pre­ted and
musi­cal­i­zed. The words delinea­te, not only in seman­ti­cs, but espe­ci­al­ly in their sound, the musi­cal
com­po­si­ti­on as a basic music infor­ma­ti­on car­ri­er. Words lose their rea­da­bili­ty and beco­me music,
are pro­ces­sed into music and are fur­ther musi­cal­ly inter­pre­ted by the sin­ging voice. This voice binds
the seman­tic and dis­sol­ving words back into music, gene­ra­ting the melo­dic abs­tract, beco­ming the
music input mate­ri­al for the com­po­si­ti­on. At the same time the four acts (move­ments) of the ope­ra
con­sist out of pre­cis­e­ly out­lined struc­tures and forms inter­pre­ted by the acti­ve musi­ci­ans
(dou­ble­bass, cla­ri­net ecc) and pre­con­cie­ved by the com­po­si­ti­on in order to full-fill the deve­lo­p­ment
of the dra­ma.
Par­ti­cu­lar aspects to focus on are the two crea­ti­ve music fields: one being busy with for­mu­la­ting the
thea­tri­cal act, by crea­ting the soil on which it hap­pens, and two the crea­ti­ve ges­tu­re of musi­cal­i­zing
the seman­ti­cs, for­mu­la­ting the dra­ma­tic evo­lu­ti­on. We encoun­ter music­less seman­tic and a
seman­ti­c­less music. The con­tra­dic­tion of this pola­ri­ty crea­tes the exci­te­ment of the life-situa­ti­on: on
one hand the musi­ci­ans inter­pre­ta­ti­on “lyri­zi­ses” the seman­ti­cs and trans­forms the essence of the
“said” (of pre­su­ma­b­ly all levels) into music. On the other hand the spo­ken word faci­li­ta­tes
music/​singing and both ele­ments crea­te a mona­dic enti­ty com­pi­led by an agglo­me­ra­ti­on of
infor­ma­ti­ons.
In the soc­cer­field moment the stage of dra­ma and music urges for wide­ness. After the inti­ma­cy and
nar­row­ness of the paths, shared with acti­ve audi­ence mem­bers, acti­ve musi­ci­ans, acti­ve
con­tri­bu­tors, occa­sio­nal­ly pas­sing pede­stri­ans, we approach a dif­fe­rent qua­li­ty of space. The
com­po­si­ti­on fore­sees a 30 pie­ce ensem­ble of a most pos­si­ble varie­ty of tone gene­ra­tors –
acoustic/​electronic/​bowed/​blown/​brass/​reeds – in order to pro­du­ce a walka­ble grid of musi­ci­ans.
The “Klangfarben”-music being crea­ted fol­lows the score of “moving” sounds sur­roun­ding the
lis­tening audi­ence mem­ber and being mixed with a solo for pro­ces­sed seman­ti­cs. The deve­lo­p­ment
cul­mi­na­tes in a “Klangfarben”-drone, pro­du­ced by all pre­sent peo­p­le and the­r­e­fo­re con­ducts to an
acti­ve and audi­ence-par­ti­ci­pa­to­ry tut­ti, fin­ding a clear music ending.