Glücklich, die wissen, dass hinter allen Sprachen das Unsägliche steht

Glücklich, die wiessen, dass hinter allen Sprachen das Unsägliche steht was premiered in the Oper Graz the 24.05.2022 by conductor Leonhard Grams.

EXPLANATION OF THE PIECE: This chamber opera consists of an interdisciplinary project where music such as video, acting, text, set design, lights, etc., have strong connections with each other and not the usual hierarchies or conventional rules. From the presence of an old person projected in the video (which represent the character of La Celestina), she appears and disappear to extrapolate its meaning and expression to instrumentalists and singers (who recite fragments of the novel in Spanish from the 15th century where this character appears). The presence of this old woman (who has a great tradition in the so-called Black Spain, which immortalized Goya in several of his paintings), is mixed to another text in German with no direct connection Cherubinischer Wandersmann by Angelus Silesius. This text of s. XVII composed of brief aphorisms in verse, of great beauty and mysterious content about how the lector can contemplate God (which has inspired and influenced philosophers so different as Schopenhauer, Heidegger or Wittgenstein) dialogues with the character of Celestina. By containing two types of texts in two different languages, the first in prose and the second in verse, both are used to highlight and musicalize their own rhythm, phonemes and colors, combining them as if they were part of the instrumental sounds and not just sentences with a conceptual meaning. The texts are not transmiting almost any action, but they improve and give more ideas to the project, remarking its beauty and content in itself. The music is of great expressiveness and flexibility to link all the components and unify them in a whole. All this creates a project where the concept that arises is a reflection on art and language.

This opera (or Music Theater of ideas, sounds and video/image) reflects about the concept of languages (as indicated by its title). The 3 great creations of the human being: art, religion and philosophy-science (which are the tools with which the human being understands and lives in the world), are in "some way" the theme of opera. Art, could be personified in La Celestina novel (the video), and also the same music and its tradition. Religion-Myth, in references to God as the ultimate transcendental concept, the main protagonists of Christianity, Orfeo and the greek Gods. The philosophy-science in the references to the "Dasein" that Rilke-Heidegger speaks, in the reflective thinking of the poets-philosophers Hölderlin and Novalis, and also the image of the machine-technology (sewing (wheel) machine). 

FRAGMENTS OF TEXT USED: 1 The novel of La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas (end of the 15th Century) 2 Cherubinischer Wandersmann by Angelus Silesius (17th Century) 3 Different poems by Hölderlin and Novalis (19th Century) 4 Die Sonette an Orpheus by Rilke (20th Century).

OBJECTIVES: This opera wants to produce in the listener-viewer, beyond a beautiful aesthetic experience, a mood in which you can ask yourself (without the need for an definitive answer) about questions that concern to all the human beings. The listener-viewer is free to create his own version of the opera. It is through ambiguity and by never fixing the ultimate meaning of its significance, that it opens the ability to interpret the opera according to their experience. Respecting his point of view and freedom.

"SYNOPSIS": The "story" takes place from an uncertain beginning (first part) where space, atmosphere and the characters themselves are created from darkness. From there (second part) the Celestina begins her normal life (eat, sew, pray, etc.) and the 4 characters also follow this path. But a mysterious presence alters the order and harmony. A new space (a temple) appears in the video and the sewing machine (symbol of madness) begins to dominate the scene (third part). There is a break-disconnection between the 4 singers and the Celestina, the singers try to search why the sewing machine it's so powerful now. A moment of tension that reaches its climax (fourth part) when the characters dissolve and the madness (or that mysterious presence) fully attacks. The resolution or death of everything (fifth part), concludes cyclically the opera.

CHARACTERS: One of the main subjects of the opera it's the Celestina's relationship with 4 characters (the singers "without name"). La Celestina is a very old person who only appears in the video. She is virtual, a fiction and a symbol of another time and world. The 4 singers are the contrary, real and belonging to our contemporaneity. At the same time there is a narrator that is only punctually heard through the speakers, a symbol of the author of the work or presence of "heaven". These 4 characters each have a special relationship with Celestina. The bass "could be like a teacher" (symbolically representing philosophy and science), the tenor a "priest" (symbolizes religion), the contralto a "writer" (symbol of art) and the soprano "the daughter of the contralto". These last 2 characters are in some way two in one, two contrasting personalities and at the same time are a double of the Celestina figure.

Joan Gómez Alemany