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‘Decoration’: A new opera by Mikael Karlsson and David Flodén

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I wish I was in New York tomorrow, not just for St. Paddy’s but to see the premiere of a new opera Decoration by Mikael Karlsson and David Flodén.

Mikael Karlsson is the most brilliant and exciting young composer of his generation, whose work ranges from Classical and the Avant-Garde, to Film Scores and Pop.

Earlier this month, Mikael told Have a Voice the story behind his opera Decoration:

‘I co-wrote the story with David Flodén. He’s a good friend of mine, and neither of us are librettists, but we just like to hang out. We got drunk, had a lot of fun and just started talking. He said “Why don’t we write an opera?” So we did, and we decided that we would only write when drunk so we couldn’t control it. We didn’t want to know what we were going to write, because then, why write it? The process has to be fun, and this way, it was.

‘And so the story has changed a lot, and it was always about whether to lie or not. The title refers to the way that we pretend that there’s meaning, the way that we pretend that love conquers all, or that it has meaning or that it matters. And the truth is that the conflict is between devotion or belief on the one hand, which helps us live, and science and the cold facts, that this little shit hole that we’re in is going to burn up in a couple of million years, so no matter how we live our lives, it’s not gonna matter. But we can’t live knowing that, so we decorate our lives by lying a little.

‘I tell myself that my friendships to other people really matter, and it feels like they do, I know they don’t. On a personal level they do, but to the universe they don’t, so the story is about that.

‘So our main character, her name is SHE – it’s very impractical – we wanted her to have a neutral name because she’s not about the beauty of the name, for instance. She’s a woman, and an astrophysicist. She treats her scientific belief and conviction as if it were a religion. So she’s maniacal about it, she truly believes that science is all that matters. She refuses to cope with any other belief, so she becomes very lonely. She’s diagnosed with an MS-like disease that slowly starts to destroy her body, and she’s losing control over it. And to a scientist, that should be great news, because you’re only a brain, you know? You can be a martyr for science by giving your body, saying that “this doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t, ideas are all that matters.” So at first, she’s being brave, and she thinks, “I can live like this, I can prove that ideas are what I am.” And I like that idea; it’s very brave of her.

‘In the second Act, as she’s slowly deteriorating, she changes her mind, and she wishes that she would have listened to some of the lies – to some of the love. But it might be too late, and it turns out that she’s losing her mind also. So she talks to the universe as if it’s a god, and it goes on from there. The central question is, should you be honest when nothing matters? And if nothing matters, why should honesty matter? If nothing matters, truth doesn’t matter. Then what are you going to do?

‘It’s a very strange story, and I like that it has logical loops and holes in it. We have an aria about dimensions also, so the idea of wormholes comes into the story, where something makes sense to a limit, and then you slip into another logic where it no longer makes sense over here. I hope that there are mistakes in it, because then the listener will have to figure something out. That’s what I love about David Lynch, noise music, anything that’s really gritty, distorted or fucked up – that you have to make sense of it, it’s not presenting itself to you. Then it’s interesting – then it’s trusting its audience that they’re not kids. That they’re grownups who can deal with problems. So we’re giving them a problem, and I hope we’re giving them an interesting enough one that they’re willing to solve it for us.

Decoration the new opera by Mikael Karlsson and David Flodén, featuring performances by Rebecca Ringle, Margreth Fredheim, Jason Cox and Raehann Bryce-Davis, premieres March 17th, 14.30h, at Manhattan School of Music, Greenfield Hall, 120 Claremont Ave. (@122nd St.), New York, New York 10027.

Directed by Caren France. Music Direction and piano by Scott Rednour and Mila Henry conducts the piece.

If you are interested in modern Classical Music, then definitely go see Mikael Karlsson and David Flodén’s Decoration.
 

 
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Previously on Dangerous Minds

From Opera and the Avant-Garde to Pop: The Musical World of Mikael Karlsson


‘Day Comes Apart’: Abby Fischer performs a song cycle by Mikael Karlsson & Rob Stephenson


 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.16.2013
10:10 am
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