METAMORPHOSEON For Six Singers

 

(Better if listen with headphones)

Written for the Neue Vocalisten Stuttgart this piece is a tribute to the old, to tragedy, to the slow movement of time when looked from a distance. The text is taken from the narrative poem Metamorphoseon (book 7) by Ovid. In this fragment, the narrator is describing the tragedy in which Cadmus is being transformed into a snake. While Cadmus was saying farewell to Harmonia, the metamorphoses into a snake is taking place. When he is completely transformed and therefore unable to say a word, Harmonia curses against the Gods, and ask them to transformed her also into a snake. The Gods were not pleased with Harmonia’s attitude, and decided to fulfill her wish and transformed her into a snake. The piece ends with the narrator describing how the two lovers are crawling into the jungle as snakes. This piece has three characters. A narrator, represented by the 6 voices, Cadmus, represented by the three male voices and Harmonia, represented by the three female voices. Ovid reminds us the acceptance of destiny, elegiac couplets, and the fusion of erotic and psychological traditional forms of epic.

Sarah Sun, high soprano
Susanne Leitz-Lorey, lyric soprano
Truike van der Poel, mezzo soprano
Martin Nagy, tenor
Guillermo Anzorena, baritone
Andreas Fischer, bass