Photo courtesy of Brisbane Festival
The Divine Kiss
Das Böse ist Immer und Überall
An opera sung in Modern and Ecclesiastical Greek, Hebrew, German and English
Dedicated to the memory of Józef Wawrzynczak
An opera sung in Modern and Ecclesiastical Greek, Hebrew, German and English
Dedicated to the memory of Józef Wawrzynczak
1999 Theatre Royal Hobart
1998 Brisbane Festival, Queensland
The Divine Kiss - The Evil is Always and Everywhere - is a music theatre work exploring the imagery of the Seven Saving Virtues. This is not a traditional text-driven narrative but a collection and superimposing of images with text.
Psychology does not know what good and evil are in themselves; it knows them only as subjective judgements about relationships. 'Good' denotes something that is not bad, and 'bad' something that is not good. One opposite is known through the other, as darkness is known through light.
Traditionally in our western culture, disability, whether visible or invisible, has tended to be viewed as something undesirable. Whether born with a disability or acquiring it later in life, the body becomes objectified as a problem to be solved rather than a person to be acknowledged. With the attention placed on the perfect body, a common theme emerges between intrusive medical intervention and popular methods of cosmetic surgery: the perceived need to change or alter the imperfect body.
For many people with disabilities the message is clear: the way their bodies are now is neither acceptable nor desirable. To be non-disabled is the imposed ideal and along with that comes the additional expectations in the quest for the perfect body. This raises the question of the perceived relationship between 'perfection' and 'goodness'. Does the absence of perfection imply a flaw in the quest of nature to attain an immaculate existence and therefore an existence of evil, or does the simple fact of existence denote a perfect goodness?
The libretto for this opera is comprised and devised from translations, adaptations, quotations and fragments from the following sources: the Old and New Testaments of the Bible; Martin Luther; Herbert Maly; Byzantine hymnography; Stephen Hawking; The I-Ching by Chuang-tse; the Torah; the Divine Liturgy; Carl Gustav Jung; AION; Ananda K. Coomaraswamy; Monoimos; The Guardian; Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species; Plato; Paracelsus' Hermetic Formula - 'Similia similibus curantur' ('Like is cured by like'); Job ix:20.
The pre-recorded tapes for this opera were produced from numerous recordings of workshops with Access Arts members in August 1997 and April 1998 in Brisbane, Australia. Additional sources included music boxes and street and barrel organs from Paris; Chopin Valse, Op. 64/1; Alvin Isaacs Sounds of Hawaii; The Wesley Three, recording of The Rabbit Song by Sven Libaek.
The opening of the work has been sourced primarily from a 78rpm gramophone recording of In the Middle of a Kiss by Les Allen and his Canadian Bachelors, a folk song quotation, Stravinsky's Firebird and a keyboard quotation from Padre Michelangelo Rossi's Andantino.
Commission Acknowledgement The Divine Kiss was originally commissioned by Access Arts Queensland and the Brisbane Festival with the Australia Council, Arts Queensland, the Queensland Performing Arts Trust, Brisbane City Council, Arts Tasmania and the Ian Potter Foundation. The premiere performance of this work was held on 16 September 1998 at the QUT Theatre, Brisbane.
The Divine Kiss Program (PDF)
1998 Brisbane Festival, Queensland
PARTS 1 TO 7
Prudence - the Divine Allopathy
Justice - the States of Being
Fortitude - return to the Womb of the Mother
Temperance - close the Door to the Senses
Faith - Noah found Grace in the Eyes of the Lord
Hope - the Ascent from Earth
Charity - Suffering Transmuted into Joy
Prudence - the Divine Allopathy
Justice - the States of Being
Fortitude - return to the Womb of the Mother
Temperance - close the Door to the Senses
Faith - Noah found Grace in the Eyes of the Lord
Hope - the Ascent from Earth
Charity - Suffering Transmuted into Joy
The Divine Kiss - The Evil is Always and Everywhere - is a music theatre work exploring the imagery of the Seven Saving Virtues. This is not a traditional text-driven narrative but a collection and superimposing of images with text.
Psychology does not know what good and evil are in themselves; it knows them only as subjective judgements about relationships. 'Good' denotes something that is not bad, and 'bad' something that is not good. One opposite is known through the other, as darkness is known through light.
Traditionally in our western culture, disability, whether visible or invisible, has tended to be viewed as something undesirable. Whether born with a disability or acquiring it later in life, the body becomes objectified as a problem to be solved rather than a person to be acknowledged. With the attention placed on the perfect body, a common theme emerges between intrusive medical intervention and popular methods of cosmetic surgery: the perceived need to change or alter the imperfect body.
For many people with disabilities the message is clear: the way their bodies are now is neither acceptable nor desirable. To be non-disabled is the imposed ideal and along with that comes the additional expectations in the quest for the perfect body. This raises the question of the perceived relationship between 'perfection' and 'goodness'. Does the absence of perfection imply a flaw in the quest of nature to attain an immaculate existence and therefore an existence of evil, or does the simple fact of existence denote a perfect goodness?
The libretto for this opera is comprised and devised from translations, adaptations, quotations and fragments from the following sources: the Old and New Testaments of the Bible; Martin Luther; Herbert Maly; Byzantine hymnography; Stephen Hawking; The I-Ching by Chuang-tse; the Torah; the Divine Liturgy; Carl Gustav Jung; AION; Ananda K. Coomaraswamy; Monoimos; The Guardian; Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species; Plato; Paracelsus' Hermetic Formula - 'Similia similibus curantur' ('Like is cured by like'); Job ix:20.
The pre-recorded tapes for this opera were produced from numerous recordings of workshops with Access Arts members in August 1997 and April 1998 in Brisbane, Australia. Additional sources included music boxes and street and barrel organs from Paris; Chopin Valse, Op. 64/1; Alvin Isaacs Sounds of Hawaii; The Wesley Three, recording of The Rabbit Song by Sven Libaek.
The opening of the work has been sourced primarily from a 78rpm gramophone recording of In the Middle of a Kiss by Les Allen and his Canadian Bachelors, a folk song quotation, Stravinsky's Firebird and a keyboard quotation from Padre Michelangelo Rossi's Andantino.
Commission Acknowledgement The Divine Kiss was originally commissioned by Access Arts Queensland and the Brisbane Festival with the Australia Council, Arts Queensland, the Queensland Performing Arts Trust, Brisbane City Council, Arts Tasmania and the Ian Potter Foundation. The premiere performance of this work was held on 16 September 1998 at the QUT Theatre, Brisbane.
The Divine Kiss Program (PDF)
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Photography courtesy of The Brisbane Festival
