Days and Nights with Christ is the first of five full-scale operas by the Australian composer Constantine Koukias

Constantine Koukias

Constantine Koukias is a Greek-Australian composer and flautist.He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of IHOS Music Theatre and Opera, based in Hobart, Tasmania. He is well known for his innovative work in contemporary opera and other forms...

 (1965 - ), and was the first opera / music theatre production by IHOS Experimental Theatre Troupe (now IHOS Music Theatre and Opera

IHOS Music Theatre and Opera

IHOS Music Theatre and Opera is a Tasmanian opera company was established in Hobart in 1990, by composer and artistic director Constantine Koukias, and production director Werner Ihlenfeld to create original music-theatre and opera works.-Major repertoire:...

). It premiered at Hobart’s Salamanca Arts Festival in 1990 and two years later was a highlight of the Festival of Sydney. The work, which explores images associated with schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...

, was inspired by the experiences of the composer’s brother and by their shared Greek heritage.

The text

Featuring a dramatic soprano

Dramatic soprano

A dramatic soprano is an operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually mean less agility than lighter voices but a sustained, fuller sound. Usually this voice has a lower tessitura than...

, a countertenor

Countertenor

A countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or far more rarely than normal, modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...

 / baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

, a speaking voice (the mother) and a dancer (Christ), Days and Nights with Christ is sung in Ecclesiastical and modern Greek. The libretto is a collection of fragments drawn from Byzantine liturgy, the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

, the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

, Jewish-American eccentric Emanuel Bronner's “Rules for Life”, and an interpretation of commentary provided by individuals suffering from schizophrenia.

Musical influences

The music, influenced by Greek Orthodox Byzantine chant, is essentially melodic, combining the human voice with electronically treated acoustic instruments. The ensemble comprises two voices, electric trombone, oboe d'amore

Oboe d'amore

The oboe d'amore , less commonly oboe d'amour, is a double reed woodwind musical instrument in the oboe family. Slightly larger than the oboe, it has a less assertive and more tranquil and serene tone, and is considered the mezzo-soprano of the oboe family, between the oboe itself and the cor...

 and percussion.

Dance

Dancer Christos Linou played Christ in the 1990, 1992 and 1997 productions. Reviewing the 1992 Sydney production, Brian Hoad described the performance as "an extraordinary portrait of anguish and agony, a beautiful yet pitifully broken man painfully struggling through lonely space".

Staging

Days and Nights with Christ is noted for its use of the vast spaces that were so characteristic of early Koukias operas produced by IHOS such as To Traverse Water

To Traverse Water

To Traverse Water is an opera by Tasmanian composer Constantine Koukias that depicts a young Greek woman's departure for Australia and her settlement there...

and Tesla

Tesla (opera)

Tesla - Lightning in His Hand is a large-scale opera about Serbian American scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla , composed by Tasmanian composer Constantine Koukias , with libretto by Marianne Fisher....

. Innovative staging effects included a wall of ice and a mountain of salt, which together created "almost impossibly vivid stage pictures".

Selected articles

Days and Nights with Christ was last produced in 1997. In the years since then, it has featured in a number of publications, including Gordon Kerry's New Classical Music: Composing Australia and RealTime's In Repertoire: A Selected Guide To Australian Music Theatre. In his detailed and nuanced discussion of the work, Kerry comments that "out of the braying trombone, the electro-acoustic atmospherics, the simple chants, the keening, Koukias has created a compelling portrait of a soul in agony and has done so in sounds, in music."

External links

• Tasmanian Composers Collective listing for Constantine Koukias
• IHOS Music Theatre and Opera web page for Days and Nights with Christ
• http://www.abc.net.au/rn/music/mshow/s49250.htmDetails of live interview with Constantine Koukias by Andrew Ford
  Andrew Ford
  Andrew Ford is an English and Australian composer, writer and radio presenter.He was Composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra , held the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer Fellowship from 1998 to 2000 and was awarded a two-year fellowship by the Music Board of the Australia Council...
  
   on ABC Radio National's The Music Show, including broadcast of recording]