Rut Blees Luxemburg

"Rut Blees Luxemburg's urban studies possess the quality of a psychic photography to see beyond the seen and enter a secondary state of perception." Michael Bracewell

Artist Rut Blees Luxemburg presents the world premiere of her new opera, Liebeslied/My Suicides, a ground-breaking collaboration between Rut Blees Luxemburg, the philosopher Alexander Garcia Düttmann, the composer Paul Clark and the choreographer Tom Sapsford.

Inspired by a series of large-scale photographs by Luxemburg, Liebeslied/My Suicides is an experimental opera, which investigates the relationship between an artist, a writer and a lover. The photographs show urban landscapes, often at night, lit by the artificial lights of the city, devoid of human faces. Text and a musical score transform these intensely chromatic images into a series of stage sets, in which the photographs are projected. They become the visual language to explore the expectations and desires, reflections and ruses of the gradually entangled lives of the three characters on stage. Music, text, and photographs respond to each other, question, interpret and challenge one another over the course of eleven successive scenes.

The artist, writer and lover, (a tenor, mezzo and soprano), undergo transformations as the opera progresses, with the idea of suicide circulating between them. The worlds of the three figures collide and fuse in a series of arias, duets and trios. Marches, scherzos, and elegies work to create shifts in pace and mood, also evoked in the choreography of the figures, and the lighting of the photographs. The very process of creation, of inspiration and self-destruction, is at the heart of the opera Liebeslied/My Suicides.

Rut Blees Luxemburg makes large-scale photographic works, which illuminate the poetics of space. She regularly exhibits in London and internationally (most recently at Union Gallery, London and Tate Liverpool), with a reputation as one of the most interesting young photographers on the British art scene.

Alexander Garcia Düttmann is a philosopher who writes on aesthetics, ethics and political philosophy. He has has worked with Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben and Jean-Luc Nancy.

Paul Clark is a composer whose work most often responds to visual stimuli. In 1995 he founded the Clod Ensemble, whose productions have featured at The Purcell Room, Oxford Playhouse, BAC, and abroad.

Tom Sapsford trained at the Royal Ballet School, where he won prizes from Kenneth Macmillan. He joined The Royal Ballet in 1993, and was awarded one of the first ever Jerwood Foundation Young Choreographers' Awards two years later. His work has been presented by The Royal Ballet, The Royal Opera House and Dance Umbrella. He is currently dancing with acclaimed choreographer Michael Clark. Pressetext

Rut Blees Luxemburg: LIEBESLIED/MY SUICIDES
The world premiere of an Opera by Rut Blees Luxemburg, Alexander Garcia Duttmann, Paul Clark and Tom Sapsford
21 - 23.10. 7:30 pm