Gertrude Opera In Association Monk Parrots Presents David Lang's LOVE FAIL

Weaving fragments from medieval versions of Tristan and Isolde with new text, David Lang's a cappella chamber opera love fail puts a contemporary lens on the classic love story. Presented as a Yarra Valley Opera Festival headline event, this collaboration with the acclaimed Monk Parrots, USA, will stream online on the 17th of October - https://www.gertrudeopera.com.au/love-fail

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award for The Little Match Girl Prison and an Oscar nominee for Paolo Sorrentino's film Youth, Lang was inspired by Tristan and Isolde's enduring legacy as one of the greatest love stories ever told. "It has been told repeatedly for almost 1000 years, in many different versions, with all manner of strange details added or changed. But why?" asks Lang.

"Of course, there is excitement, drama, love, lust, shame, death and dragons, but I think the real reason is because the love of Tristan and Isolde begins by accident - they drink a love potion. It is almost a laboratory experiment into what love might be like without any of the complications of how real love begins or works - without the excitement, embarrassment, frustration, guilt or competition... I thought I might learn something about love if I could explore this in a piece, putting details abstracted from many different retellings of Tristan and Isolde next to texts that are more modern, more recognizable to us, more real."

Taking cues from Lang's approach and the disturbances caused by the global pandemic, Director Luke Leonard (Founding Artistic Director of Monk Parrots - monkparrots.org) places theatrical metaphors in the natural world with "distanced" actors performing choreographed movements in a field. Exploring the gaps of opera and filmmaking, love fail blends vocal performance with video capture and digital effects to experience the accident of love under unusual circumstances.

Gertrude Opera Presents

love fail by David Lang

7pm, 17 October 2020

https://www.gertrudeopera.com.au/love-fail

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