Both Graham Fitkin’s Home and Neil Hannon’s Sevastopol proved not only innovative and accomplished but enjoyable, too… Fitkin’s melismatic music and Jasmin Vardimon’s choreography both gather intensity relentlessly, and the performers are admirably assured.
HOME
2012
HOME
2012
★★★★
‘Innovative and accomplished’
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Commissioned & produced by ROH2 in an adventurous collaboration with minimalist composer Graham Fitkin, Jasmin Vardimon and The Royal Opera House
In her very first creation using live music on stage, Vardimon directs a beautiful and hauntingly eerie piece exploring concepts of ‘home’ and how we strive to shield our homes from invasive and oppressive forces.
‘A visual feast above a pulsating score.’
British Theatre Guide
CREDITS
CONCEPT, DIRECTION AND CHOREOGRAPHY
Jasmin Vardimon MBE
COMPOSER
Graham Fitkin
LIBRETTO
Graham Fitkin & Jasmin Vardimon MBE
PERFORMERS
Esteban Fourmi, Aoi Nakamura, Luke Burrough, Melanie Pappenheim and Victoria Couper
CONDUCTOR
Graham Fitkin
MUSIC PERFORMED BY
The Graham Fitkin Band
SET DESIGN
Guy Bar-Amotz
LIGHTING DESIGN
Chahine Yavroyan
COSTUME DESIGN
Emma Bailey
VIDEO ARTIST
Jesse Collett
PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY
Tristram Kenton
LENGTH
approx 35 mins no interval
PREMIERE
20 April 2012
COMMISSIONED & PRODUCED BY
ROH2, OperaShots is part of an ongoing programme of opera development work across the Royal Opera House which ranges from full-scale commissions to development workshops, courses and observer programmes.
ARTICLES & REVIEWS
In the first half, Graham Fitkin’s Home is perhaps the most accomplished piece featured in the series to date… The main visual element is articulated in Fitkin’s co-librettist Jasmin Vardimon’s intricate choreography, presented here by Estéban Fourmi and Aoi Nakamura.
This is Vardimon’s first creation with live music onstage and she makes use of the instrumentalists to create a visual feast above a pulsating score.
Fitkin’s Home, to a libretto co-written by the composer with choreographer Jasmin Vardimon, is more music-theatre than opera. In exploring the nature and meanings of home, Vardimon (who also directs) presents a simple three-sided room – a blank canvas or empty shell in which a pair of dancers, Esteban Fourmi and Aoi Nakamura, form a now swaying, now intertwining couple whose only possession is domestic bliss.