Work of the Week - Chaya Czernowin: Pnima...Inwards

On 9 July 2010, the Staatsoper Stuttgart will present Chaya Czernowin’s chamber opera Pnima…Inwards as their final production of the 2009/10 season.  The new production will be directed by Yona Kim with stage design and costumes by Herbert Maurer and Katharina Weissenborn respectively.  Johannes Kaulitzke will conduct the four soloists and chamber orchestra for this challenging work.

Czernowin’s chamber opera was named the best World Premiere of 2000 by German magazine Opernwelt and is based on David Grossmann's novel "Stichwort: Liebe". The story follows the traumatic upbringing of an Israeli boy in the 60s as his older generation comes to terms with their horrific experience of the holocaust.   Although based on a literary source, no words are sung in Pnima…Inwards. Instead the work relies solely on vocalised sounds from the cast and music from the orchestra as it’s only means of expression. "Pnima" is Hebrew for "inwards" and relates to how the performance compels the audience psychological and social issues of the subject.

The director Yona Kim spoke about her first impressions when hearing Pnima...Inwards:  "I find this work amazingly free in its excessively modern and thrilling sound world ... It feels like a myriad of razor blades flying around the room – an unusual and curious beauty."

In conjunction with the main production at Stuttgart opera house, additional performances and talks will take place including "Inside the sounds - four approaches to Pnima", where musicologists and literately scholars will discuss Czernowin's opera in relation to events experienced by Israeli Jews. Furthermore, Kim and Czernowin will give a post concert interview after a performance of Czernowin’s Manoalchadiya for two female voices and bass flute and on 14 July Czernowin will speak about music, literature and love with writer Ulrike Draesner in the Literaturhaus Stuttgart.

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• Website of the Staatsoper Stuttgart