Duration: 50 minutes, no intermission
The performance will be in English with Slovenian surtitles.
Libretto: Simona Semenič
Director: Yulia Kristoforova
Conductor: Simon Dvoršak
Dramaturgy and Movement Direction: Ana Pandur
Set Design: Vasilija Fišer
Costume Design: Monika Colja
Performers: Gaja Sorč, Laure-Catherine Beyers, Katja Konvalinka, Irena Yebuah Tiran, Aja Markovič
Ensemble of the Slovenian Chamber Music Theatre
“Opera Platno is not a story about love, but a story about longing intertwined with reality – a cross-section of a single, simultaneous moment in the lives of four women. Through four protagonists – women of different ages, backgrounds, and pasts who could exist anywhere and at any time – memories, projections, desires, and longings intertwine; an architecture of emotions, fantasies, and fears, alongside sudden intrusions of reality.
We access their longings, dreams, fears, and the limits of their existence through their reflections on the absent Don Juan, who represents a playground and a field of possibilities – in fact, just one of many possible playgrounds that could be anything else; this time, it happens to be Don Juan. In mirroring this figure, the production at times also exposes the process by which women predefine themselves through the imaginary offered by the promise of Don Juan. Don Juan does not exist; there are countless Don Juans at once – each protagonist adapts him to her own fantasy and arranges him according to her desires.
Platno (Canvas) is not a metaphor for passivity, but an active field of resistance, a kind of manifesto for telling one’s own story with one’s own emphases, as the protagonists themselves wish. In a world where femininity has historically been constructed as a response to the verticality of the idea of man, the protagonists of Platno instead create their own (fantastical) world in which they decide their own place within it – even when, in circumstances permeated by violence, they dissociate from reality and embody the decision to endure as a form of resistance against oppression.
The protagonists are not victims defined by the male gaze; on the contrary, through their vitality and imagination they give meaning to the empty point, and in the face of intrusions of the real, violence, and cruelty, they create a space that builds resilience, community, and a way forward. They devise their own lavender fields – inspiration, a safe space – lavender fields that represent a retreat from reality, yet also allow them to look at themselves with distance and a good measure of empathy.
Their fate is not a matter of romantic waiting, but of the raw power of existence. Even within the rhythm of the factory, the women preserve their autonomy through humor, cynicism, and an unyielding will to live. They move through their own existence as beings in constant motion. Their fate is not a matter of romantic longing, but of bare survival; they fight to make their fantasies legitimate and to prevent life from slipping away too soon.”
Composer Nina Šenk received the Johann Joseph Fux Prize in 2022 for the opera Platno. The work premiered in October 2023 in Graz.