On 15 May, the world premiere staging of Peter Eötvös’ opera Senza sangue will open at Opéra d’Avignon in France conducted by Eötvös himself as part of Festival d’Avignon. Senza sangue was premiered in concert last year by the New York Philharmonic in Cologne.
Based on the novel of the same name by Alessandro Baricco, the opera is set during the Spanish Civil War. A young man and his comrades murder the family of a young girl, but when his eyes meet the young girl’s gaze, he decides to spare her life. The girl spends her life seeking revenge, killing the men who murdered her family one by one, except for the man who saved her. She longs for the gaze that changed her life so many years ago, in the hope that it might save her again.
Peter Eötvös on writing Senza sangue
“Senza sangueis my tenth opera. I have prepared myself like a film director, who wants to shoot his next film in black and white. In my earlier operas I wanted to show a colourful range of sounds; now I’m looking for sharp contrasts and shadings of black, grey and white. I based the orchestral score on sound collaboration, not on the independence of the different voices. Many instruments are playing the same melodies producing a powerful sound, similar to the Japanese calligraphy where with the stroke of a brush, one big line is made.” – Peter Eötvös
Senza sangue will be performed in new productions across 2016-17 including at Armel Opera and Hamburg State Opera, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra will give the UK concert premiere at the Barbican in 2017.
photo: Klaus Rudolph
