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| The Three Astronauts | |||
| Based on an extraordinary picture book for all ages by Umberto Eco and Eugenio Carmi, Three Astronauts is a moving and thoughtful metaphor about enemies, friendships and alliances between and among people, nations and alternative universes. Told in four languages - American, Russian, Chinese and Martian, an international creative team will bring to life this gentle tale about our need in this world or any other for understanding and communication across cultural and language barriers.
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- VIDEO LIBRARY -
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| Production Team | ||
| Conception, Direction: | Grethe Barrett Holby | |
| Visual Concept: | Eugenio Carmi | |
| Composer and Writer Teams: |
Chinese Chinese |
c: Ye Xiaogang w: Liu Sola |
| Choral Text: | Nikki Giovanni | |
| Commissioners & Premiere Partners: | Family Opera Initiative, ZOON Medien/Musik/Theater | |
| Development Partners: | Ardea Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts | |
| Major Funding: | The Jaffe Family Foundation, AKC Foundation | |
| The Three Astronauts Project Description |
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THE THREE ASTRONAUTS is the next opera-musical under development by Family Opera Initiative, a company committed to exploding the notion that opera need be "the fat lady sings." These operas embrace an indigenous vernacular energy, burst forth in our own American-ness, and resonate with our own language(s). They are made to enchant, challenge and inspire multigenerational audiences - our definition of family; to make us laugh, cry and acknowledge who we are. In this extraordinary picture book made for all ages by world-renowned author, political philosopher and semiotician Umberto Eco, and by revered Italian visual artist Eugenio Carmi, an American, a Russian, and a Chinese astronaut take off separately in their rockets. Each wants to be the first on Mars, but they all land at the same time. The story of how they evolve from enemies into allies is ripe for the stage; and the stark, abstract beauty of Carmi's imagery will transfix audiences. |
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Read around the world, The Three Astronauts has been translated into 40 languages, and is distributed in nearly every country around the world. The publisher intends to re-release the book with the opening of the opera in 2009. An international creative team will bring the story to life on the stage. As conceived by American director-producer Grethe Barrett Holby, The Three Astronauts will embrace sung and spoken text, orchestral and choral passages, dance, and visual theater. It will be performed in four languages - American, Russian, Chinese and Martian. Each of the astronauts will perform in his/her own language without subtitles, sharing their isolation and alienation with the audience. The Children's Chorus will sing text by American poet Nikki Giovanni, which will be translated in the language of the country where it is being performed. Authors from the appropriate countries will write the dialogue for each of the astronauts. A new language will be created for the Martian. Identifying these writer/poets is underway. Italian artist, illustrator Eugenio Carmi will lead the design team. FOI artistic director Grethe Barrett Holby will lead the librettist team. This gentle tale about our need in this world, or any other, for understanding, presents an important and very timely political message in the broadest sense of the term. We are part of a multi-national, multi-lingual country, and terrifyingly engaged in an increasingly overlapping world. Yet communication across cultural, religious and linguistic boundaries is at an all time low. Yet with all our own differences, Martians present the ultimate "other". Not only will the Martian's language be impossible to parse, but the Martian, according to Eco and Carmi, should be terrifyingly ugly and incomprehensible to the human eye, yet encompass extreme humor. To our eyes and ears a huge barrier to cross, but a being who will win our hearts and souls. |
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| The Three Astronauts Artists Bios |
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UMBERTO ECO (Author) is a world-famous specialist in semiotics, a distinguished historian, philosopher, aesthetician, and novelist. His novels include The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, and Baudolino. Nonfiction works include Travels in Hyperreality, History of Beauty, Belief or Nonbelief?, and Theory of Semiotics. Eco has traveled the world lecturing on the untranslatability of languages. He teaches at the University of Bologna. | ||
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EUGENIO CARMI (Artist, Visual Concept), born in Genoa in 1920, calls himself a "manufacturer of images." Others call him one of the most quietly significant forces in twentieth-century Italian art. His work in the graphic art world still influences his fine art. Creating Italsider's corporate image in the 1960's, he participated in the Venice Bienniale and in 1973, created a 25-minute experimental program for Rai Television Network. A bellwether of Italian taste, he may be best known for the illustrations he has created for Umberto Eco's stories. |
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GRETHE BARRETT HOLBY (Conception, Direction, Libretto)Holby's primary mission lies in originating, collaborating on, and directing new American opera, which began with her originating role in Robert Wilson-Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, and choreographing Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti & A Quiet Place for the Houston Grand Opera, La Scala, and Kennedy Center. Founding Director of American Opera Projects, fostering 25 new works during her tenure, and currently Ardea Arts/Family Opera Initiative with 6 new operas, she has directed productions for opera companies including Anchorage, Indiana, Lake George, Los Angeles, Memphis, Philadelphia, Toledo, Wolftrap. |
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| Nikki Giovanni (Poet; text for Children's Chorus)Professor of English and Black Studies at Virginia Tech, where she has taught since 1987, her poetry collections include Acolytes (2007), The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 (2003), Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not-Quite Poems (2002) Blues For All the Changes: New Poems (1999), Love Poems (1997), and Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni (1996). Her honors include the Langston Hughes award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters in 1996. |
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YE XIAOGANG (Composer) Regarded as one of the most influential composers in China, Xiaogang Ye also is a standing member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman of China's Musicians' Association, vice president of the Central Conservatory of Music, and a member of its composition faculty, founder-music director of the Ensemble Eclipse, and artistic director of Beijing Modern Music Festival. Among many other awards and premieres both in China and around the world, Ye's piano concerto Starry Sky was premiered during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing by Lang Lang and watched by 3 billion people worldwide. | ||
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LIU SOLA (Writer) An award-winning Chinese author of fiction, short stories, and essays, including You Have No Choice (1985) - "The first truly modernism literature work in China," Small Tales of the Great Ji Family (2000), Blue Sky Green Seas - "She pulls us straight into the generation's dichotomous heart," and Chaos and All That, Liu Sola is also an iconoclastic composer and vocalist. Librettist and composer of operas Fantasy of the Red Queen (2006) and The Afterlife of Li Jiantong (2009), she has also composed for film, theatre, orchestra, modern music ensembles, rock, jazz band, and Chinese ensembles. | ||
| VLADIMIR NIKOLAYEV (Composer) Ukrainian-born Russian composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electro-acoustic works that have been performed world-wide, Nikolayev is a regular participant in new music festivals in Russia and abroad, including the Alternativa, the Moscow Autumn and the Moscow Forum. Working with synchronizing acoustic with electronic musical elements, his work has been described as "filed with the excitement of a rock concert." He is the composer of the popular Gold of Narts ballet staged at the Bolshoi Theater, as well as the recipient of many awards. |
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DANIEL L. EVERETT (Martian Language & Culture) Controversial linguist and anthropologist, former chair of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures at Illinois State U, now Dean of Arts & Sciences at Bentley U, Everett is an expert on Amazonian grammars, especially Piraha and Chapakuran-Wari'. His 2008 book, Don't sleep there are snakes: life and language in the Amazonian jungle was published in six languages, a best-seller in England and Germany, and selected as "best books of 2009" in both the US and UK. Everett's newest book, Cognitive Fire: Language as a Cultural Tool, is published in the US and the UK. A documentary about his life and work, The Grammar of Happiness, is scheduled for release worldwide in 2012. | ||
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| The Three Astronauts premiere commissioning consortium | |||
| For information about joining The Three Astronauts consortium, please contact: Grethe B. Holby Family Opera Initiative Tel: 212.431.7039 info@familyoperainitiative.org |
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| The Three Astronauts Fact Sheet | |||
