Curlew River

Visuals for opera staging

Techniques

images on a lighttable, digitally animated, live image-processing

Materials

coloured cel-sheets

Premiered in a 15th-century church, Aleksi Barrière's production of Benjamin Britten's opera Curlew River at the Urkuyö & Aaria Festival in Finland featured a continuous, ever-shifting "virtual glass painting" as its backdrop. In constant dialogue with the music and drama, and in close synch with the lighting, my digitally animated three-panel video offered abstract, associative images contributed to the performance's atmosphere and to the storytelling.

Premiered 31 August 2023 in Espoo, Finland

"Combining absorbing video projections, delicate lighting and befittingly subtle costumes, the stage imagery of Barrière, [lighting designer] Étienne Exbrayat and Lucia Schmidt was conceived with utmost insight, bridging the score and the venue together in organic manner."

– Jari Juhani Kallio, Adventures in Music

SINGERS

Tuomas Katajala, tenor (Crazy Woman)
Arttu Kataja, baritone (Lautturi)
Aarne Pelkonen, baritone (Matkamies)
Matti Turunen, bass (Apotti)
Onerva Merikanto, vocals & Otava Merikanto (Spirit of the boy)

CHOIR

Martti Anttila
Jarno Lehtola
Joonas-Ville Hietaniemi
Juhani Vesikkala
Greggory Haueter
Janne Helekorpi
Antti Villberg
Riku Laurikka

ENSEMBLE

Antti Tikkanen – viola and music direction
Kaisa Kortelainen – flute
Tuomo Matero – double bass
Erno Toikka – french horn
Heikki Parviainen – percussions
Katri Tikka – harp
Petteri Pitko – organ

CREATIVE TEAM

Direction Aleksi Barrière
Lights Étienne Exbrayat
Video Lucia Schmidt
Set design and costumes Aleksi Barrière & Étienne Exbrayat

APRIL | 2025

Design

DRUNK LAMENT | 2025

Cut-out animation

EARTHRISE | 2024

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Objevení & Zapomenutí | 2024

Design

ROSA BONHEUR | 2024 –

Design

WERK-STADT-SCHLOSS | 2022

Cut-out animation, Workshop

EUROBANANE | 2016

Design

#bauhaus100

Design

Smalltalkmaschine-Zine | 2018

Design

Library of Women Artists | 2021

Design

LABYRINTH | 2021

Projected Visuals

Neuronal Landscapes | 2020

Cut-out animation, Projected Visuals

Golden Shoes and a Blue Piano | 2023

Cut-out animation, Poetry Film

The Fatzer Soldier’s Tale | 2022

Cut-out animation, Show, Projected Visuals

MANGLARES | 2019

Cut-out animation, Poetry Film

Das Leben in Weimar | 2019

Cut-out animation

Die SMALLtalk Maschine | 2017/18

Cut-out animation

EL PRIMER RECUERDO | 2018

Poetry Film

FERNWEH | 2018

Cut-out animation, Poetry Film

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