A mobile phone opera in four acts.

Hermes Libretto download

Photos by Angela von Brill  www.angelavonbrill.de

“I’m sitting in the train. Where are you?” Everyone has a mobile phone these days and what was once a conversation in closed rooms is nowadays happening in the public sphere. The mindless phone monologues in busses and trains have irritated the German artist Karl Heinz Jeron for years. A few months ago he began to write them down – two notebooks have already been filled. This is the basis for the libretto of an opera performed by tiny singing robots: two soloists and a choir. For the setting to music he collaborates with the composers Robert Jähnert and Christian Rentschler . The stage scenery is a video projection of public domain images.  The Libretto’s terms have been used for the image search.

The title is derived from Hermes, the god of elocution. The mobile phone conversations will be arranged around general concepts like secret, sex, guilt, betrayal. In these four acts the artists stages the recorded conversations and transform everyday life into artistic action.

Excerpt of the libretto, act one, “The Secret”:

Soloist:
“Was da passiert ist, wird immer klarer. Es geht um folgendes: Ich weiß, dass ich es unbewusst mein ganzes Leben lang tat. Und was voriges Jahr war, war auch bereits da. Es gab nur nicht genügend Beweise. Ich dachte nur: Was zum Teufel geht hier vor? Komm damit erstmal klar. Ob das wahr ist oder nicht, ich weiß das nicht. Es ist unser Thema, das weißt du, und es geht immer weiter.”