Photo by Aleksandar Mijailović

A Deep Black Sleep

A film-noir opera for tenor, chamber ensemble, and masked characters that blurs the boundaries between cinematic and live performance.

A composer caught between artistic values and political expediency in a threatening authoritarian climate. An opera about the creation of an opera.

‘isms’ build walls, and music knows no walls….

Nationalism, wall-building, and the manipulation of fake news around us, makes this piece ever more relevant in our lives today.

 

Libretto – Alan Mauritz Swanson
Voice – Tyrone Landau
Direction, Lighting & Design – Constantine Koukias & Slavisa Drobnjaković
Music Director – Donald Bate
Lighting, Projection & Surveillance Camera Consultant – Jason James
Musicians / Mask Characters – Derek Grice, Konrad Park, Julius Schwing, Hayato Simpson and Gabriella Smart
Surveillance Cameraman – Arjan Kok
Sound Consultant – Greg Gurr
Wardrobe & Costume Advisor – Elizabeth Monaghan
Headless Coat Costumier – Srećko Dimitrijević & Slavisa Drobnjaković
Mask Fabricators – Churchill Studios
Production Manager – Ivan Johnston

Film Sequence Director – Slavisa Drobnjaković
Director of Photography – Aleksandar Mijailović
Editors – Mihajlo Jevtić & Ferdy Roozen
Costume Design – Slavisa Drobnjaković
T – Tyrone Landau
Clock Man – Ivo Raposo Dos Santos
Headless Man – Ilija Surla
Tailor – Felix Kalkman
Young Couple – Ilija Surla & Susanne Maenen
School Teacher – Alda Alispahic
Children – Emma Kalkman, Fleur Harmsen, Jana Galanoić, Tess Boers, Soledad Montenegro
Piano Accordion – Dennis Munoz Espadina

We meet T, a composer. He works on a song he is composing, but finds the words meaningless. What he really desires is a new commission. He has a libretto to an opera written by his dying comrade, a libretto with deep meaning for him. This is what he wants the ruling junta to commission him to compose.

Unknown masked figures visit him, leaving him uneasy and uncertain. He hopes they bring news of the new commission. But everything they bring leaves him more bewildered, as they gradually lure him into working for ‘the cause’. Torn between artistic values and political expediency, he sees his opportunity. He demands the commission of his friend’s opera as the price for working for ‘the cause’.

But will he succeed? Will service to the political cause leave him the freedom to compose the opera, or will it stifle the very source of inspiration?

Tyrone Landau

Voice

Having started out as a pianist in a dance school in Covent Garden, Tyrone became Musical Director of Dance at Clwd Theatr Cymru, Wales, before moving to Australia. He worked there for a number of years before returning to London. Tyrone has enjoyed considerable success as a tenor in traditional repertoire (with a focus on Rossini, Mozart, and Donizetti) and also has extensive experience in contemporary music and opera. His recent operatic productions include Friends Like The Rain and Alt Om Min Familie for Bergen Nasjonale Opera, Norway; The Owl and the Pussycat for Royal Opera House, London; Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda for Melbourne Arts Centre, Australia; and Anti-Midas for the Beckett Theatre, Dublin.

Other recent performances include Messe un Jour Ordinaire for Cité de la Musique, Paris; l’Hôtel Chelsea for Kings Place, London; La Partenza for the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; Tonos Humanos for the Recital Centre Melbourne, Australia; À l’Agité du Bocal with l’Ensemble Ars Nova, Poitiers; Passio Olavi for the Kirke Autunnale Festival, Bergen; and Praxitella, for the re-opening of Leeds Art Gallery.


Alan Mauritz Swanson

Libretto

Alan Mauritz Swanson is an American composer and academic who lives in the Netherlands.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1941, he took his BA (1963) and MA (1965) at Indiana University and his PhD at the University of Chicago (1973). In between he studied at Stockholm University. As an academic, he taught at Augustana College (Rock Island, Illinois), Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah), and the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), and came to specialize in the theatre and opera of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Alan trained as a singer and many of his early compositions are for voice, but recent work has tended to be varied in form: string quartets, a viola concerto, a partita for piano, and other works. In 2006, he was honoured for his academic and community work by being appointed Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau.


Vera van der Bie

Vera van der Bie

Music Director

After obtaining her Masters degree as a classical violinist, Vera van der Bie has been all over the musical landscape. She has played with classical orchestras such as Nederlands Kamerorkest and Radio Philharmonisch Orkest, and held a job for years with the Metropole Orkest. She played the contemporaries in ASKO/Schoenberg, Doelenensemble, Doelenkwartet and Ensemble Klang, while also playing and improvising in bands like Martin Fondse Orchestra, Elastic Jargon and Zapp4. She has toured with acts like Bill Laurance, Jonathan Jeremiah, Lenine and Di-rect and done projects with dance (Scapino, ISH), silent film (EYE) and music theater (Veenfabriek). She’s is very active as a studio musician and contractor (Omnivorous Music), recording music for cd’s, film and commercials.

Apart from playing violin, viola, musical saw and singing, Vera has also written and arranged music for Zeeuws Orkest, Metropole Strings, Friesian Proms and Ricciotti Ensemble, as well as for her own groups; West Side Trio (electric string trio with effects and vocals) and Quartet Quinetique (string quartet).

Current tours include Odelion Orchestra, Odelion Duo and Flip Noorman sings Leonard Cohen.


Slavisa Drobnjakovic

Slavisa Drobnjaković

Film Sequence Director

Slavisa Drobnjaković commenced his acting studies in classical theatre at the age of fourteen in Yugoslavia. Further study took him to the Art Academy and Cultural Anthropology in Belgrade. After moving to Amsterdam in 2001, he has been involved as a performance artist at Das Arts Amsterdam and Amsterdam Cyber Theatre and other artistic collaborations.

He has written several commercial scripts for ComradFilm in Slovenia and worked as a creative assistant on the films of Heidi Vogels and theatre director Boris Todorovic. In recent years, Slavisa dedicates himself entirely to film and works for the stage. He has been engaged as a writer/ director for Sluizer Film Productions for two long features:

       “The Tragic Death of Branka Djukic” follows the painful process within one highlander family, from the moment of the mysterious murder of their daughter to the act of revenge itself. In the development of the story there lie human instincts and irrationalities as catalysts to all further events.”

       “The Waste Land” is the frame tale of a man who tries to escape his homeland and his fate. Historiographic metafiction set in 1923, in the time of the first publishing of T.S. Eliot’s poem of the same name.”

For the stage, he is co-designing a new chamber opera for Nancy Black, for Black Hole Theatre based in Australia. For Foundation IHOS Amsterdam he has written and directed the film sequences for “A Deep Black Sleep”, a chamber opera for solo tenor and six masked musicians. Two short films “Eros & Thanatos” and “The Pain of Others” by Slavisa Drobnjakovic are planned for release in 2021.

       “Eros & Thanatos” is a love story based in an asylum centre, a particular kind of limbo realm where the temporal dimension of past and present intertwine and gradually disappear, reducing the individual to nothing but their life force. A grotesque exemplar, a trivialisation of the Freudian concept of Eros & Thanatos.”


Don Bate

Music Director

Don Bate is an acclaimed Australian music producer, performer, composer and conductor. Don worked as a music producer for the ABC and most recently was the Executive Producer of Music Production for ABC Classic. Previous to this Don was the Principal Trombone of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Associate Principal of the Opera Australia Orchestra.

As a conductor/music director he has led a number of productions for IHOS Opera including The Barbarians and Days and Nights with Christ. Don has also conducted the Tasmanian Symphony on a number of projects and has led a variety of ensembles at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music. Don is a graduate of the Canberra School of Music having majored in Trombone with Michael Mulcahy, Conducting with Leonard Dommet and Composition with Donald Hollier.

Highlights of his work as a music producer include a release of Stravinsky Ballet Suite’s with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Shostakovich’s Opera ‘The Nose’ with the Australian Opera and numerous other festival live recordings including The Sydney International Piano Competition and two seasons at Musica Viva’s  Huntington Chamber Music Festival. He has also recorded and broadcast artists such as Anne Sophie Mutter, Lang Lang and Daniel Barenboim (with the Berlin Staatskapelle).


Aleksandar Mijailović

Cinematographer

Aleksandar Mijailović was born in Užice, Yugoslavia, in 1976. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree and Master Degree in Motion Picture & TV from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade. He is a Member of UFUS – The Association of Film Artists of Serbia.

He has over 15 years experience in the field of film production, making documentary, fiction, corporate, and music videos, and over 20 years on numerous of television programs as the camerman and director of photography. Among his many programs are Road to Agartha (2020) – a feature-length documentary filmed in Southeast Asia, and Super Heroes of Media Literacy (2020) – a feature TV series over 18 episodes for young people on the topic of media literacy in the 21st century for. National Television of Serbia.

On the Right Track (2019), Young Minds of Serbia (2019), BURN (2018), and Controindicazione (2016) are four of a large number of documentary reports for the non-governmental sectors, such as the  United Nations, Red Cross, USAID and SeConS.

In addition to feature and documentary films, he often works as a videographer in the field of music. He has recorded and directed several music videos, both for classical and jazz music and for alternative rock bands.

In 2019 he was the Director of Photography for the opera A Deep Black Sleep, produced by Foundation IHOS Amsterdam. He has also had a long-term collaboration with the Opera & Theatre Madlenianum in Belgrade for several years.