"William Kentridge's award-winning chamber opera Waiting for the Sibyl (2019) makes its New York premiere this week in Brooklyn (until 11 October). The debut comes as part of the inaugural Powerhouse: International arts festival at Powerhouse Arts, a converted former power plant in Gowanus. The international festival celebrates theatre, music, dance and other types of performance. Founded by David Binder, a former artistic director at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Powerhouse: International kicked off last month with a choreographed skateboarding performance and continues until mid-December."
"The opera takes its inspiration from the oracles of ancient Greek and Roman legend-specifically, the Cumaean Sibyl, who resided in a cave near Naples and, when people came to her with questions about their future, would write the answers on oak leaves. The sibyl arranged the leaves outside the cave, but when a wind came, their inevitable shuffling meant that those who sought her answers could never be sure which leaf was meant for them."
Waiting for the Sibyl (2019) receives its New York premiere at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus through 11 October as part of the inaugural Powerhouse: International festival. The chamber opera features an original score by Nhlanhla Mahlangu and Kyle Shepherd that incorporates South African harmonies, an ensemble of ten singers and dancers, and a staging that integrates animated ink drawings, collages, text projections and sculptures. The production won a 2023 Olivier Award. The work draws on the myth of the Cumaean Sibyl and uses blowing paper leaves, including pages from Dante's Divine Comedy, as a theatrical metaphor for fate and uncertainty.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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