Operadagen Rotterdam

Annelies Van Parys: An Archive of Love
for six voices a cappella (2018) ^WP
Staging Het Geluid: Romy und Gable Roelofsen

Texts: Gaea Schoeters

Neue Vocalsolisten

A co-production of Music of the Centuries, Concertgebouw Brugge,
Het Geluid Maastricht, Musica Sacra and Theater aan het Vrijthof

The concept of this musical meditation on love was developed by composer Annelies Van Parys together with librettist Gaea Schoeters, who writes: »The great and self-ruining lovers in the stories that have been handed down have formed our unconscious image of romantic love. These stories form a vast archive, a collective consciousness of the shape of human love, containing all the love songs ever written. Claudio Monteverdi hunted down Cupid in his «Madrigali Guerrieri et Amorosi”, Claude Vivier tried to capture the essence of Eros in his »Love Songs«, while José-María Sanchez-Verdu focuses on the connection between Eros and Thanatos in his book of madrigals »Scriptura Antiqva«.

In Annelies Van Parys’ song cycle »Ah, cette Fable,« an angel is captured by his mortal lover. The angel finds himself in an unsolvable dilemma: if he remains on earth, he will die, but if he makes use of his angelic wings, his lover will not survive. As this little tragedy unfolds, the archive of love songs begins to vibrate: Words, sounds, and feelings trigger associations and memories of past passions, both sacred and profane. Echoes and fragments of other, older love songs attach themselves to this new story, interrupt it, complement it, and thus propel the story in new directions.”