Project:
Krakatau
The Explosion of the Island of Krakatau
An opera
Created By:
Tim Brady (Composer) and John Sobol (Librettist)
With:
Anne-Marie Donovan (Director) and Michael Montonaro (Visual Design)
Overview
The Explosion of the Island of Krakatau is a 75-minute magic-realist opera about the origins –
and transfigurations – of recorded sound, and its impacts on human experience and perception.
It remixes the experiences of 6 individuals whose lives are defined in very different ways by recorded sound. The experiences of these 6 characters (4 of whom are historical figures) stretch from the pre-history of recorded sound, through its actual invention, and on to its eventual popularization.
The explosion of the island of Krakatau in 1883, which produced the loudest sound known to human history, serves as a metaphor for the profoundly disruptive nature of sound recording technology, as well as serving as a setting for both the opening and closing scenes.
Characters
The historical characters are:
Emile Berliner (1851-1929), inventor of the microphone, turntable and record
Emma Albani (1847-1930), a celebrated opera singer
Yoko Ono (b. 1933), artist, singer, widow
Sir George Martin (b. 1926), recording engineer, producer of almost all recordings by The Beatles
The fictional characters are:
The Islander, a native South Pacific islander, a young woman, who witnesses the explosion of Krakatau in the distance from high up on the side of a neighbouring island. She also sees her entire village swept away below her in the resulting tsunami.
The Hoodude, an African-American mojo man from the bayou whose parents were escaped slaves; a mystic revolutionary seeking freedom for his people, and finds it in Emile Berliner’s inventions.
Synopsis
The Explosion of the Island of Krakatau remixes the experiences of 6 individuals whose lives are defined in very different ways by recorded sound. The experiences of these 6 characters (4 of whom are historical figures) stretch from the pre-history of recorded sound, through its actual invention, and on to its eventual popularization.
The opera tells the story of the creation and journey of the very first recording – and very first record – ever made, which makes its way into every character’s hands at a different point in the opera, and means something different to each.
The opera is bookended by the experiences of a native woman on a South Pacific island. The opening scene occurs in 1883. From high on a mountainside, The Islander witnesses the explosion of the neighbouring island of Krakatau, which results in a tsunami that washes away her village far below. That volcano also produced the loudest sound known to human history, and so her song of defiance and despair is carried by those volcanic sound waves across the world to the studio of inventor Emile Berliner who, at that very moment, is recording history’s very first record, on which her remote voice is impressed, like a ghost in the machine.
Her record makes its way into the hands of each character, including the The Hoodude, a Mojo Man and mystic seeking the freedom of his people, Black Americans, who has traveled northwards from New Orleans following signs that have led him to Berliner’s studio, like a wise man following the star above Bethlehem. It also finds its way into the hands of Emma Albani, the great opera singer at the end of her career, Sir George Martin, the legendary record producer whose own recording studio on Montserrat was itself destroyed by a volcano, and Yoko Ono, the singer and conceptual artist whose wild vocalizing is actually not that far from that of the distraught Islander herself.
In the opera’s final scene – which is not the most recent scene chronologically but takes place about 1925 – the itinerant HooDude carries the record with him as he explores a mountainside in Indonesia. There he encounters an elderly native woman and a gramophone. This is the very same character we encountered in the opening scene, The Islander, now much older. As she puts on his record she is astonished to recognize her own voice in the scratchy cacophony that emerges from the gramophone.
Ensemble
The musical ensemble will be the internationally-acclaimed CONTACT Contemporary Music Ensemble, from Toronto. This virtuoso group combines traditional classical instruments (piano, violin, cello, clarinet) with more modern sounds (percussion, electric guitar, saxophone, bass, electronics) to create a uniquely 21st century idiom, with a huge array of colours, atmospheres and dramatic musical possibilities. It will feature Tim Brady on electric guitar.
The musical ensemble will also include a DJ, who will be featured as a soloist in two scenes. The DJ is at once a member of the musical ensemble and an alter-ego of the Hoodude. The DJ will be an internationally renowned turntablist.
The Orchestra of Gramophones
One unique scene will feature an orchestra of approximately one dozen antique gramophones playing custom-recorded records, each manipulated in different ways by members of the musical ensemble and cast.
Art Direction
The opera will employ a technologically sophisticated set design based on multi-channel video projection. This technique produces stunning visual effects and maximum design flexibility with minimal physical infrastructure.
