Undine geht! (Undine leaves!) (2020/2021)
A kind of monodrama based on Ingeborg Bachmann
for an actress, a singing cellist, a singer, mixed ensemble and additional parts
Duration: 35 min.
Commissioned work for Klang21 - Salzburg Pocket Opera Festival 2021, funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation
WP: 28/09/2021 SZENE Salzburg, SalzburgUndine - Katharina Brenner, Camille - Frauke Aulbert, Violetta - Sachika Ito, Hans - Hans Woudenberg
NAMES Ensemble; Conductor: Peter Rundel
Performance material available from Boosey & Hawkes
UNDINE GEHT! (2021)
Kammeroper, Taschenopernfestival Salzburg 2021, Filmdokumention: Kristof Georgen
Cast:
Camille- soprano,
Undine - actress,
Hans - solo cellist with acting skills
Double bass clarinet in Bb
trombone
Percussion
sampler
harp
piano
Electric guitar
viola
double bass
Programme booklet text
Ingeborg Bachmann's 1961 story 'Undine geht' was considered an 'objection' to the traditional Undine tales at the time. For the first time, Undine had her own voice here , her view of love, of the 'order between people' was placed at the centre...
Exactly 50 years have passed since then. Accordingly, my Undine is getting on in years, just like my Hans. But 'the world is stilldark' and 'no clearing' is in sight.
And so Undine once again has a dialogue with the people, reviews the utopias she conjured up 50 years ago, becomes entangled in contradictions, continues to be combative - and repeatedly indulges in her own delusions of grandeur...
And Hans, is he nothing more than her projection screenin this kind of monodrama?
And who or what is this being with the gender-neutral name 'Camille' (not to be confused with Camilla, the prostitute from Max Frisch's 'Mein Name sei Gantenbein')? A metamorphosis of the old Undine or her 'alter ego'? Is it a coincidence that the main character in Donna Haraway's book 'Unruhig bleiben' also bears this name, a symbiont, a mixture of human and rare butterfly?
At one point, Camille quotes a short passage from Björk: "The past is on loop. Turn it off." But can - and do! - Undine and Hans hear them at all? When the water keeps rising?
Iris ter Schiphorst, August 2021
Reviews
NZ, March 2021, Egbert Hiller "Death kisses and traumas"...
Grand finale at the Salzburg Pocket Opera Festival...
Iris ter Schiphorst's "Undine geht" dissects Bachmann's Undine in terms of its utopian dimensions - and has to realise that the "world is still dark and there is no clearing in sight". But this does not plunge her into despair.
With harsh bitterness, quirky charm and piercing sharpness, shrill revue echoes and reflective observations merge; bursts of sound from pop culture and opera tradition suddenly break in.
The fields of tension created by the performers are simply breathtaking: Katharina Brenner as Undine, Hans Woudenberg as the "singing cellist", Frauke Aulbert as the mythical creature and Sachika Ito as Violetta (from Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata), who rushes in as an interlude on a mobile stretcher.
The brilliant Ensemble Names, now once again under the direction of Peter Rundel, also pushes the boundaries of the conventional...
Mermaid in new clothes - Taschen Opern Festival /Hilfe! Undine goes http://www.drehpunktkultur.at/index.php/auf-den-buehnen/musiktheater-tanz/15459-undine-in-neuen-kleidern
...The finale is Undine geht! by Iris ter Schiphorst, who specialises in effective, not at all alienated appropriations between noise avant-garde and techno, pop music and Verdi arias, so that you can't get bored. She does this with a tangible sense of theatrical action and skilfully uses original Bachmann texts. Undine is an actress here (the charismatic Katharina Brenner), Hans a singing and speaking cellist (Hans Woudenberg, perfect in all his roles). In addition, there is a mysteriously girly creature called Camille (the patented Frauke Aulbert), who also quotes a Björk song. At the end, before the cellist dies between the relentless Undine and his instrument, Sachiko Ito is allowed to demonstrate that she can sing Verdi's Violetta. Lively applause for an experimental evening worth seeing and hearing.
Gottfried Franz Kasparek 29/09/21
"Help! Undine goes", Salzburg Pocket Opera Festival 2021, Atelier Talk, 29/09/2021, Bibliotheksaula, Univ. Salzburg
https://unitv.org/beitrag.asp?ID=1019&Kat=1&SubKat=16