Opera Magazine
Marguerite Haladjian | Opéra Magazine, 03.07.13
MH (...)Why are you interested in the voice and in musical theatre?
VM The abstract nature of musical language is what makes it the most sublime of arts, but its curse is that it is perceived as outside the world! In opera, drama embodies the sound matter, and carried by voice, anchors music in life. The voice is the most beautiful instrument there is. I am very sensitive to its fragility that exposes the interpreter to all risks. (...)
MH Ambiguous atmospheres seem to stimulate your musical imagination. After PING, based on an enigmatic monologue by Samuel Beckett, you´ve now created THE HOUSE TAKEN OVER, an enigmatic work based on a libretto by Sam Holcroft after Julio Cortazar´s novel. Why have you chosen this particular text, and why is it in English?
VM The musicality and economy of the english language serve well my writing. (...) I was interested in the fantastic dimension that manifests itself by the appearance of strange elements to reality. Unusual noises gradually invade the space of the ancestral home and become unbearable. The brother-sister couple, two solitary beings, cut off from the world, lead a dull and repetitive existence, which increases the gap between the banality of their daily lives and the supernatural manifestations. Behind the appearance of an accurately described real world we guess a strange universe. Reality escapes and brings disorder, to which the audience slides in from the beginning.
MH At the beginning, the characters experience the events without trying to understand the origin of the mysterious sounds that take possession of a part of the house. They take refuge in another room, which is in its turn invaded. In this atmosphere of dramatic tension, how do you translate these two episodes (and the sounds associated to them) into music?
VM At first, they accept without fear the presence of the supernatural that is gradually creeping in, and life is still possible - although difficult. But then, with the second invasion, it really becomes unbearable. The brother leads his sister to escape by abandoning everything, as the sound of the invisible becomes oppressive. Both intrusions are like the escalating process of a unique phenomenon that the musical structure develops through variation, in order to maintain this dramatic atmosphere. (...)
MH Doesn´t this story take place within the characters' interior and secret space?
VM The tragedy of this piece is of an intimate nature. Our reactions, as well as our behaviors reflect our personal history, are very often unconsciously repressed. This 'unsaid' is the fertile ground that nurtures music. (...)