The human voice resonates differently from anything else. When people sing together, it’s transcendent. Chemically, it produces a high and, spiritually, it feels enlightened.
Last night, artists-slash-musicians Raúl De Nieves and Colin Self debuted their four-act chamber opera The Fool, a sold-out performance that underscored the transformative power of unity. “It’s a gathering of vocalists to use the voice as a tool of change,” Self told Opening Ceremony, “to carve out a different type of attention.”
As an artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room, De Nieves enlisted the help of Self and a cast of live singers and string instrumentalists to create the opera. The project became both a labor of love and a collaboration of interpreted ideas. The piece was staged in the performance center's marble interiors in downtown Brooklyn.
The experience watching and listening was otherworldly—what one showgoer aptly described as “bananas.”
The Fool tells a simple story with a small cast of archetypal characters alongside a chorus of singers embodying said Fools. The staging begins with the Mother, decked in braids and a beard, played by the performance artist Mehron Abdollmohammadi, whose vocal performance felt like it was coming up from the floor and out through his mouth, and the Child, played by Alexandra Drewchin, wearing traditional Mexican garb. Two bejeweled doors on stage open and close throughout the performance, revealing other characters like the Dog, gamely embodied by De Nieves.
In an energetic later act, the old woman, played by Self, sings and thrashes around on a bed, and the chorus of Fools emerge and circle around her, chanting. Their billowy white bodies are actually inflated chub suits, reminiscent of Oompa Loompas. “We really wanted to have that chaotic element of whatthefuck,” explains De Neives about the choice of costume. “We wanted it to be funny.” And so, the producers drew inspiration from various trickster characters throughout history and culture. In particular, “The character of the Fool represents the soul on a journey in search of experience,” says Self. “It’s the betwixt and between. It becomes not only a character, but a way to live and be on the planet.”
De Nieves and Self have been longtime friends in New York, and their idea for this opera emerged from the two having separate, yet eerily similar, experiences. De Nieves had a talk with his mother on a cliff overlooking the ocean, while Self had a recurring dream, also staged on the edge of water. Both were feeling a moment of change and transformation in their lives, and they wanted to explore how the human voice holds healing potential. “Even when I was young and went to church, my favorite part of it was when we’d all sing a song together, because the collective voice is like medicine,” recalls De Nieves.
Their process was organic. Self explains before there were defined opera rehearsals, he was simply interested in seeing what happens when you put people together in a room... to sing. “The voice is a way to escape the body,” he tells us. “We are going through some insane global changes about what the body is and what the body means and,
Last night, artists-slash-musicians Raúl De Nieves and Colin Self debuted their four-act chamber opera The Fool, a sold-out performance that underscored the transformative power of unity. “It’s a gathering of vocalists to use the voice as a tool of change,” Self told Opening Ceremony, “to carve out a different type of attention.”
As an artist-in-residence at ISSUE Project Room, De Nieves enlisted the help of Self and a cast of live singers and string instrumentalists to create the opera. The project became both a labor of love and a collaboration of interpreted ideas. The piece was staged in the performance center's marble interiors in downtown Brooklyn.
The experience watching and listening was otherworldly—what one showgoer aptly described as “bananas.”
The Fool tells a simple story with a small cast of archetypal characters alongside a chorus of singers embodying said Fools. The staging begins with the Mother, decked in braids and a beard, played by the performance artist Mehron Abdollmohammadi, whose vocal performance felt like it was coming up from the floor and out through his mouth, and the Child, played by Alexandra Drewchin, wearing traditional Mexican garb. Two bejeweled doors on stage open and close throughout the performance, revealing other characters like the Dog, gamely embodied by De Nieves.
In an energetic later act, the old woman, played by Self, sings and thrashes around on a bed, and the chorus of Fools emerge and circle around her, chanting. Their billowy white bodies are actually inflated chub suits, reminiscent of Oompa Loompas. “We really wanted to have that chaotic element of whatthefuck,” explains De Neives about the choice of costume. “We wanted it to be funny.” And so, the producers drew inspiration from various trickster characters throughout history and culture. In particular, “The character of the Fool represents the soul on a journey in search of experience,” says Self. “It’s the betwixt and between. It becomes not only a character, but a way to live and be on the planet.”
De Nieves and Self have been longtime friends in New York, and their idea for this opera emerged from the two having separate, yet eerily similar, experiences. De Nieves had a talk with his mother on a cliff overlooking the ocean, while Self had a recurring dream, also staged on the edge of water. Both were feeling a moment of change and transformation in their lives, and they wanted to explore how the human voice holds healing potential. “Even when I was young and went to church, my favorite part of it was when we’d all sing a song together, because the collective voice is like medicine,” recalls De Nieves.
Their process was organic. Self explains before there were defined opera rehearsals, he was simply interested in seeing what happens when you put people together in a room... to sing. “The voice is a way to escape the body,” he tells us. “We are going through some insane global changes about what the body is and what the body means and,