Bayerische Staatsoper's SINGULARITY is Now Available to Watch On Demand

Bayerische Staatsoper presented the World Premiere of Singularity on 5 June 2021.

The opera Singularity celebrated its world premiere at the Cuvilliés Theater on 5 June 2021 at 7.00 pm (CEST). The "Space Opera for Young Voices" is a work commissioned by the Bayerische Staatsoper and was written especially for the young singer's of the Staatsoper's Opernstudio.

Czech composer Miroslav Srnka, alongside playwrighter and librettist Tom Holloway, creates this musical comedy about technological progress and its consequences for human coexistence. Singularity is an a-typical improbable science fiction between Earth and outer space and brings the comic side of this theme to the stage of the Cuvilliés Theater.

The performance is now available as video-on-demand from 9 June.

In the opera Singularity, a doubling of voices is used: Each character has a digital double. Composer Miroslav Srnka and his librettist Tom Holloway create a piece about a topical issue for an ensemble of young people. After the chamber opera Make No Noise (2011) and the Antarctic drama South Pole (2016) , this is the third opera they have created together for the Bayerische Staatsoper. This one is explicitly intended as a comedy: Whenever it comes to communication between people, whether classical or electronic, there are pitfalls everywhere. Misunderstandings, malice, quarrels lurk on every side, and as it soon turns out, the four characters have a lot to sort out with each other. Tom Holloway's libretto sets a fast speech tempo; he plays ping-pong with the language, his characters think fast, they don't chatter opera. The effect is even greater when the staccato at some points of the conversation comes to a standstill, expressing that realization takes its time. And there are many moments for that. Miroslav Srnka's way of composing is predestined for such a narrative - and for a story that is largely set in space. He takes up current forms of communication inspired by the online world of shortcuts and emojis as an integral part of his music - especially in moments of pauses, stillness or approach, when the vocal lines gather into intimate moments or soar into emotional expressions.

The production's soloist ensemble consists of two representatives of each of the four vocal registers: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone. The members of this year's Opernstudio, last seen together on the stage of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Mignon (2020) and Montagsstück IV: Come ti piace (2020), create Eliza Boom and Juliana Zara (soprano), Daria Proszek and Yajie Zhang (mezzo-soprano), George Vîrban and Andres Agudelo (tenor) and Andrew Hamilton and Theodore Platt (baritone).

Learn more at https://www.staatsoper.de/en/productioninfo/singularity.html.

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