X (2007)

 

L’s routine, lackluster existence is disrupted by a chance discovery of a diary which uncannily parallels her own life. Fascinated with everyday rituals of the enigmatic diary-keeper, she begins walking in the wake of her footsteps. Mimicking the diary’s author, L’s life spirals into an obsession with a dangerous double game of following and being followed and her reality takes on the eerie sense of a déjà-vu, culminating in a mysterious disappearance.

 

Inspired by the work of the French conceptual artist Sophie Calle, the Swiss composer Katharina Rosenberger and the New York director Ivan Talijancic (from WaxFactory) set diverse performance languages on a collision course: combining the cinematographic images with theatrical action, and live performance with electronic soundscapes, music gets visible and space audible. Three singers and the ensemble für neue musik zürich on stage function as a modern chorus in dialogue with the dual-layer video projection.

 

The driving event of the plot, the reading of a stranger’s diary, depicts an overt transgression of privacy. Our globalized control-society indulges in exposing privacy in the media, continuously blurring the limits between private and public spheres. In the age of computer-games like Second Life on the world wide web, this project investigates the relationship between virtuality and individual reality through the connection of theatrical and cinematic presence with fragments of texts by Jean Baudrillard and Sophie Calle.

a video opera developed in collaboration with composer Katharina Rosenberger, and Ivan Talijancic (WaxFactory)

 

co-Production | Verein Freqwerk, GRü – Theater du Grütli, La Båtie-Festival de Geneve in collaboration with WaxFactory, Zürcher Theaterspektakel

composer | Katharina Rosenberger

director (stage and film) | Ivan Talijancic

text | Iva Sanjek, Ivan Talijancic

opera singers | Sylvia Nopper, Leslie Leon, Leila Pfister,

film actress | Erika Latta

ensemble für neue musik, zürich | Hans-Peter Frehner (conductor), Raphael Camenisch (flute), Daniela Müller (saxophones), Nicola Romano (violin), Anna Trauffer (violoncello), Andreas Brenner (contrabass)

director of photography + video design | Antonio Giacomin

voice over | Nolwenn Moreau + Stephan Pastor

video | Antonio Giacomin

set | minimart

costumes | Guiomar Giraldo

lights | Daniel Müller, Blaise Dutoit

producer | Thomas Keller (Verein Freqwerk + Association X)