An Experimental Opera Project Combining Painting, Music and Immersive Art
The idea for The Magic Sea first came to me almost fifty years ago and has resurfaced repeatedly ever since. It received new impetus in 2007 when I encountered La Fura dels Baus’ spectacular production of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung in Valencia. What fascinated me was not Wagner alone, but his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk: the idea that music, poetry, drama and visual art can become parts of a single artistic experience. [1]
The Magic Sea Project and its connection to Richard Wagner
Even readers unfamiliar with Wagner’s operas can follow the central idea: a total work of art in which music, visual dimension and narrative become inseparable. What is essential, however, is Wagner’s epochal concept of the “Gesamtkunstwerk”. And here again his idea of not only composing themes for the actors but also e.g. the Rhine, Siegfried’s sword, or the ring, and using these themes to describe the action in the composition.
In traditional opera, music, text, performance and stage design interact, but the visual dimension usually remains a setting for the action. The Magic Sea reverses this relationship. My idea is to let the visual world itself become a protagonist: an evolving sequence of painted forms, light, space and movement that develops alongside the music.
The Concept
Even if the idea that I would like to present today might sound unrealistic or at least utopian at first, I would by no means see it as unfeasible. Namely, the idea of an opera as a total work of art, in which the visual dimension is the actor, tells the story. A storyline that evolves dynamically and conceptually. Even more, it can be modulated and further developed by us. Sounds a bit confusing? For a better understanding I will sketch the core of the basic idea and the course of the opera with little text and only discuss the beginning and the end in more detail. (I have painted almost all of the presented pictures and drafts recently).
From Paintings to an Immersive Visual Space
The technical possibilities for realizing such a project will continue to change. Artificial intelligence, digital projection and immersive environments already make it possible to transform visual material in ways that were difficult to imagine when the idea first occurred to me. Yet the technology is not the work itself. The essential material would remain the paintings, sketches, musical ideas and narrative structures created by the artist. Digital tools could then help translate this material into a changing visual environment surrounding the audience. [2]
What’s new in this project?
The distinctive idea behind The Magic Sea is that the visual development would begin with paintings rather than with written instructions alone. Sketches, finished works, colors, forms and compositional ideas would provide the vocabulary from which the evolving environment is created. Music and narrative would add further layers, allowing the project to develop as a dialogue between human artistic decisions and digital transformation. The images shown here are therefore not designs for a finished production, but stages in the development of an idea.
This article is not about presenting a finished project, not even showing finished pictures – because there aren’t that many – but showing the development of an idea.
The sea became the central metaphor of the project because it can suggest origin, transformation and return. It can appear calm or violent, empty or full, formless yet constantly producing forms. These oppositions also connect with ideas that have long interested me in Chinese philosophy and painting, particularly the relationship between emptiness and form. Visually, however, the project remains primarily an experiment in abstraction, light, movement and space.
Overture
The opera begins in almost complete darkness. Gradually, faint areas of light emerge and an abstract visual world begins to take shape. Sea and space remain indistinguishable; the scene might suggest a microcosm or a macrocosm, something infinitely small or immeasurably large. Form emerges from formlessness, movement from stillness. Rather than illustrating a specific place, the opening establishes the visual language from which the following acts will develop.
Act 1
And so this magic sea opera also begins in the realm of chaos, from which the forms of being, objects, and scenes gradually develop. The diffuse light at the beginning gradually begins to form spaces and structures. The initially warm tones slowly become colder.
The protagonists of this opera are themes (in Wagner’s sense), e.g. the abstract and the concrete, the white as the light a.s.o. Initially, the light would primarily define space or just places and objects. What is initially reminiscent of an opera stage (detail 1) gradually expands (detail 2). An additional level comes into play through abstract faces or sea creatures. (detail 1a)
The idea touched on in an earlier article (new horizon) of no longer looking at an image in front of you, but rather standing in the center of the action, naturally takes on a special significance.
The light leads us further and further into the depths of the sea and reveals new worlds to us.
To the extent that we bring in details in color and shape, we get a corresponding end product.
Act 2
The second act begins again with a very abstract image, which again outlines the events of the act through themes and composition.
Everything around us is condensed now, tremendous power is brewing from the interplay of the opposites like the abstract and the concrete.
The tension rises, and this force increases further and discharges explosively…..
….. emerges from the depths of the sea and, forming a powerful suction, washes around the earth and pulls everything with it into the depths.
Act 3
The third act begins with the calm after the storm. The “gluttonous fish” has devoured everything, and calm is gradually spreading.
(an abstraction of the head of the “gluttonous fish” – detail)
Sky and sea begin to harmonize again and the light shows the way.
White, as light and principle, is taking up more and more space. The abstract and the concrete have found a playful and harmonious coexistence.
Closing scene
We have returned to emptiness, but it is no longer the darkness from which the opera began. It is now luminous and open, containing the possibility of another beginning. The cycle closes where it began: with a space from which forms may once again emerge.
The very last stroke I made in this picture is this blue, floating something in the upper left of the picture, which is hardly noticeable because of its delicacy, but which is nevertheless of great importance.
This something can refer to the sea and to the sky. It points far in the distance and is very close. It can be a fish and a bird, it is moved and rests in itself.
In this picture, if we mentally draw a curve from the blue something to the bottom edge of the page, we find its opposite: an explosion, which is the opposite of calm and stillness.
We are again in the void, in the nothingness, that contains everything – now white and radiant. And so the cycle is closed.
What if?
What if the project never materializes? Because there will be no corresponding AI program or AI will be banned at all?
What I particularly like about this project is that failure is already part of the concept. It wasn’t until I was writing the article that I remembered: there was something about the failure of an opera project?! Those who know the fantastic film Fitzcarraldo will remember how this great dreamer wanted to build an opera house in the jungle and failed miserably.
And like Klaus Kinski as Fitzcarraldo, I will not see failure as a defeat but will puff on a thick cigar happily – next to me the velvet-covered chair of the opera director. The only thing left of the project – at least physically 😊
footnotes:
[1] If you want to get an impression of this grandiose ring production, this link is recommended: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wagner+ring+valencia+
[2] For this opera, I would use Richard Wagner and Japanese koto music as musical opposites and music by Brian Eno as a supporting base.
Related articles: sketches-from-the-peking-opera I the-gift-of-the-white-snake I hear-a-painting
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