De qué modo en lo anónimo
Radio Opera
based on a text by Juan José Saer
based on a text by Juan José Saer
Music and libretto Marcelo Toledo
Commission 2002 from National Radio Spain and CDMC.
The work was created at the CMC Computer Music Center at Columbia University. Premiered in the XVIII International Festival of Contemporary Music Alicante, Spain, October 1st 2002.
The work was created at the CMC Computer Music Center at Columbia University. Premiered in the XVIII International Festival of Contemporary Music Alicante, Spain, October 1st 2002.
Broadcast by National Classical Radio Spain
The work has four parts. They should be performed without intermissions or stops.
1- Otros, ellos, antes, podían. (They, the others, could.)
2- Y yo ahora (And me now)
3-Humos (Smokes)
4- Ningún Rumor (No Rumors)
“De qué modo en lo anónimo” could be presented in both ways: broadcasted and/or in a concert as electro acoustic music.
Duration: 30 minutes
Technical requirements for a concert setting:
2 or 4 loud speakers, mix board, amplifier, CD player
Lighting control is needed to create a dark-winter atmosphere.
“De qué modo en lo anónimo” “In what way in the anonymous” is a sonic interpretation of the text “La Mayor” (1972) by the Argentinean writer Juan José Saer. This paradigmatic work consists of a paragraph 50 page long, that describes in almost cinematic detail the internal world of its only character, the writer Tomatis, during a long winter night. The narration uses as an introduction an intertext that refers to the world of Marcel Proust and the character Marcel who is able to recover the past by tasting a madeleine soaked in a cup of tea.
“They, the others, before, could. They soaked, slowly, in the kitchen, in the evening, the cookie, dipping it, raising, after, the hand, in one movement, to the mouth, biting it and leaving it for a moment, the sweet dough, at the tip of the tongue, to let raise from it, from its dissolution, as a night dew, the memory.”
The narration is an uninterrupted journey where memory, perception and thoughts are interpolated with almost schizophrenic intensity.
