The Daughter of the Sorceress wanders through the Map of the four Neighborhoods looking for her personal Turtle
texts and visuals: Luciana Arditto; music and concept: Cecilia Arditto
The opera is a non-dramatic description of an imaginary Kingdom: a cosmogony where music, images and texts are creating, together, a unique organism.
The creation of these cosmogonies are inspired by the Argentine artists Xul Solar and Jorge Luis Borges; by Italo Calvino and his “Invisible Cities”; and also by Albert Einstein and Rudolf Steiner who created, in different ways, their own cosmogonies.
This opera was born from a project by my sister Luciana Arditto, a visual artist, for her studies at the Prilidiano Pueyrredón school in Buenos Aires. Luciana creates a series of paintings based on the idea of cosmogony, including texts of her authorship, influenced by the aforementioned authors.
I turn her project into an opera in the context of my Master, at the Amsterdam Conservatory, which obtained cum laude in my final exam. Over the years, the original scenes continued to be played -individually and grouped- in chamber music versions or with alternative staging.
I kept adding new scenes to this ever-expanding opera at the Camargo residence, France, at the Klankkleur Festival, Amsterdam and in collaboration with the Ensemble Adapter Berlin and Arnold Marinissen in Amsterdam.
This opera still dreams of a full stage version that unifies its multiple manifestations.
Sections of the opera
This opera suggests with the music, the texts and the visual world, an imaginary world to live in. The narrative thread is given by the catalog form presented in successive chapters describing different aspects of this imaginary place. Sometimes the visual aspect is focused on, some other times the music or the text. Most of the times, the in-betweens.
The music
The music aims at recreating an “aural cosmogony”. The percussion world is used to expand its set to all kind of sound objects. Finding unusual sounds in the musical instruments and the human voice is not looking for extended techniques but for an extended perception of sound, triggering the curiosity and the deep listening, slightly dithering categories.
Download PDF score (coming soon) – for more information please email me.
The text
Texts in this opera appears under different forms: projected, sung or spoken. Texts are projected on different screens, walls, floor, characters.
Sung texts are not meant to be understood literally. The voice treatment is based on the idea of text as texture or text as sound.
Download original Libretto: different versions of this opera (fully or partially staged) have been implemented around these texts.
Send download link to:
All the Neighborhoods are connected by hanging bridges that are suspended over the void. It is said that there is a parallel Kingdom in the abyss, where all wishes are granted…once you choose your fate, there is no return.
Some of the scenes of the opera can be played individually as chamber music (go to list of works for more details)
• Genealogy (ensemble)
• The Magic / the Sorcerers
• The Replacements for the Queen
• The Cartography
• Map of the Sky in movement
• The Train which passes once every hundred years
• The Science and the Fashion
• The Religion
• The Cartography and the Magic
• The Queen and her Pets
New added scenes.
• She is looking for her turtle
• Maps of the water
The Cartographer can change the reality by modifying the maps. An ink spot on a map may become a new planet in the sky or, depending on the scale employed, a seed in a pot. Changes in the Kingdom, vice versa, instantly alter the drawing of the maps. Which came first-the Kingdom or the Maps-is unknown.
The Cartographer built a house by drawing it on a map… but the kitchen is too small.
https://wordpress.ceciliaarditto.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/lamagia-perc.mov
Arnold Marinissen (perc) – Miriam Overlach (harp) – Klankkleurfestival
Uilenburger Synagoge – June 2007
The stage
The daughter… allows different implementations. From an concert chamber version (only with musicians and a slide show) to a full stage opera version. The daughter… has already been performed in different formats, from single isolated scenes, to group of scenes. New scenes have been added to the original work over the years. For more information and performance possibilities please contact me.
Download original Stage design: different versions of this opera (fully or partially staged) have been implemented around these ideas.
Send download link to:
For more information and performance options please email me.
The Queen´s custom is half a dress, half a sculpture.
Stage design – Map of the Kingdom
The stage is a screen for multiple projections
Video gallery
The daughter of the sorceress – fragments
Eindexamen Composition Conservatory of Amsterdam – Bachzaal – May 2004 (cum laude)
The Queen and her Pets
Natalia Calderon Sergio (alto), Amy Horvey (tp), Misha Sporck (hn), Thomas Myrmel (trb), Ainhoa Miranda (bass cl), Jane Lang(conductor) – Eindexamen Composition Conservatory of Amsterdam – (cum laude) -Bachzaal – May 2004
The Science and the Fashion
J. Kegel, L. Cueto (sop) N. Calderon Sergio (mezzo), A. Spiegel (alto), D. Poutanen (oboe), Y. Cohen (tp), W. Roterberg (vc), K. Kaas (conductor) – Eindexamen Composition Conservatory of Amsterdam – (cum laude) -Bachzaal – May 2004
La Magia / The magic (excerpts)
Arnold Marinissen (perc)- Miriam Overlach (harp)- Klankkleurfestival, Uilenburger Synagoge – June 2007
Maps of the water / mapas del agua (2008)
Marina Lafarga Garcia percussion – Auditorio del Conservatorio Superior de las Islas Baleares – February 2019
Maps of the water (2008)
Arnold Marinissen (perc)-Klankkleurfestival, Uilenburger Synagoge – June 2007