S.E.M. Ensemble performs MANY MANY WOMEN at Roulette Intermedium

To open the 33rd season of Interpretations Concert Series, the S.E.M. Ensemble will perform Petr Kotik's six-hour-long, magnum opus Many Many Women (MMW) (1975-78), set to Gertrude Stein's 86-page novella of the same title. After its NYC premiere at The Whitney Museum of American Art and Paula Cooper Gallery in 1979, Richard Kostelanetz called the piece "continually austere and yet engaging"- a classic of underground music in the 1970s. The upcoming concert follows the first staged performance of MMW, produced at the New Opera Festival NODO in Ostrava, Czech Republic this past June. Featuring Berlin director Jo Fabian's staging and projections, the Roulette production will also include a simultaneous performance of Kotik's Drums for percussion (1977-80). MMW hasn't been performed in its entirety in NYC since 2013.

It was the invitation to perform the piece at NODO, that inspired the creation of the staged opera version. NODO festival explores new approaches to opera and this year, it included operas that turned away from the romantic notion of an opera as drama. These new operas could be described as "variable situation spectacles," such as the monumental Prometeo by Luigi Nono (two conductors, four orchestras, choir, vocal and instrumental soloists, percussion, narrators and extended electronics). - Petr Kotik

MMW will be performed as an opera - a spectacle without a plot or a story. The score consists of 173 sections across 378 pages. The sections are distributed among all the performers, who shape the piece during the performance, improvising their entrances and creating a musical flow of unpredictable configurations. Despite its open form, MMW is traditionally and exactly notated. The twelve musicians - six singers and six instruments - will perform continuously for six hours.

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