Geweld & Vibrato
An operatic performance for singing actor and soprano,
3 percussionists, 3 strings, live electronics, radio and insect sounds.
Composer Huba de Graaff found in her parents’ estate letters and photographs of her maternal uncle who fought in Indonesia for the Dutch army. In sharp contrast are all the documents she found from her paternal Indo grandfather. He appeared to have been friends with members of the Indonesian anti-colonial resistance. She is the living product of two families, embodying the two sides of this colonial war.
A Dutch soldier conducts a small orchestra in the interior of Indonesia. The music-making “natives” don’t really cooperate, and gradually, more and more annoying insects appear. Whipped up by the historic speeches of General Spoor and Prime Minister Beel, the whole thing escalates into an outburst of transgressive vibrato and theatrical violence.
An unorthodox opera, in which the phenomenon of “vibrato” is used as a metaphor for the violence of Western expansionism: overwhelming and forced transgressive vibrato.