Ambient Opera

[Ahornberg]

yesterday I came up with the idea of an ambient opera.

I searched the web for that special genre but didn't find anything until now.

my idea is to use pictures or paintings to guide through the story ... a story of love, of course.

my story so far is this:

an art student, a young girl, reads a book about the famous painter Velázques. One of the pictures in this book shows the painting "Venus at her Mirror". She is absolutely convinced that the mirror in the picture shows her own face. She beginns to be obsessed. She falls in love with Velázques in her dreams. At her research she found a series of medieval tapestries, called "The Lady and the Unicorn" ...

I want to use this six tapestries to guide through the whole story. On one of this pictures there is an unicorn looking into a mirror. This picture could explain the magic how her face is on "Venus at her Mirror". The other pictures could explain the magic of how to come in contact with Velázques. At the end she decides to take suicide by falling into an eternal sleep to live on with Velázques in her dreams for ever ...

it's a crazy story, I know.
it's a crazy project, I know too.
but I begin to be obsessed ... :pray:

[nadaRobot]

Nice idea! I must admit, when I read the topic title my first thought was of a diva humming an 11-minute drone. Seriously, though, I love high-concept pieces. Looking forward to hearing where you go with this.


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[Under the Net]

Great idea. But it needs to be at least 168 hours long.

[Ahornberg]

maybe the overture be a one and a half hour drone ... :daydream:

[Ambient Lifeforms]

I wonder if you could actually find singers who would go for the idea - I expect you would want them to sing more "ambient"-like. Drop some of their vocal flourishes, embrace longer notes and just play with the vocal timbres of their voices...?


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[Ambient Lifeforms]

By the way do we have vocal artists in this group?


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[Ahornberg]

I wonder if you could actually find singers who would go for the idea - I expect you would want them to sing more "ambient"-like. Drop some of their vocal flourishes, embrace longer notes and just play with the vocal timbres of their voices...?

maybe overtone-singers

[Synthetic Aurality]

I think it's a fantastic idea, but is going to be a real bear to pull off successfully.

Lots of hard work for this one... :workingout:

[Ambient Lifeforms]

Off course you don't necessarily need opera singers! Those throat singers could be it - if you are not planning on lyrics though...


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[Ambient Lifeforms]

And it would be hard to carry your story without lyrics at all... Hmmm interesting 😀


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[Ambient Lifeforms]

I've also thought about larger coherent works, symphonies and operas, but I've never had the guts to actually go ahead with it. As synthetic states it would be a lot of work to bring it to fruition.


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[Ahornberg]

yes, there have to be lyrics in an opera ... I'm also thinking about using a voice synthesizer like utau or vocaloid

[Ahornberg]

the more I work on the story of my opera the more it comes clear that there are 3 storylines:

1) in the present (the time the young art-student lives in)
2) in the past (the time the master-painter lives in)
3) in their both dream (the dreamworld)

so storyline 1 should be in standard western tuning (12 equal division of the octave), the tuning we all already know

storyline 2 should be in a meantone-tuning like Valotti, Werckmeister or something similar

and for storyline 3 I want to use a microtonal tuning, maybe http://xenharmonic.wikispaces.com/33ed4

[Ahornberg]

... I hope I get the whole thing done til x-mas

[Toaster]

Phillip Glass would like a word with you about Ambient Operas