Synopsis

“Which is better — the movie, or the book it’s based on?”

On today’s date in 2003, at its premiere in Graz, Austria, a new multi-media opera asked a different question: “Which is better — the opera, or the movie it’s based on?”

The new opera, Lost Highway, is by Olga Neuwirth, an Austrian composer, and was inspired by a 1997 movie by American film director David Lynch.

Like David Lynch’s film noir, Olga Neuwirth’s opera, which combines live action and music with videos and electronic tape, is dark, often baffling, and more than a little creepy – perfect for a Halloween premiere, in fact. Neuwirth herself had this to say:

“I wanted the stage to be aseptic and empty … I had to conceive music and video (the two forms of art which deal with time) simultaneously so that I would be able to match the famous film with a new arrangement of sound and image ... The singers and actors have to move through this terrible sense of space, namely, the sense of being nowhere, in a non-space, the non-real, the non-palpable … a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating vortex between dream and reality.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Olga Neuwirth (b. 1968): Intro from Lost Highway; Klanform Wien; Johannes Kalitzke, conductor; Kairos CD-0012542KAI