By Lucy Wilson
In signature style IHOS Opera staged their
performance Kimisis in a unique setting, this time in Old Hanan’s Transport
Warehouse in Hunter Street, Queenstown. The audience gathered just inside the old dark
shed, as piercing daylight poked through thousands of little holes in the
corrugated iron walls. Greek incense wafted and a wheelbarrow of sand held a
golden abundance of slim burning candles.
Kimisis means to sleep. I couldn’t help recalling the surviving miners' description of retrieving the bodies of their dead mates from deep in the mine, lying in a peaceful repose as if they’d lain down and drifted into sleep against the rocky walls of the tunnels.
The opera was based on an important Greek ritual,
which celebrates death and assumption into heaven, and had been artfully
distilled into 20 minutes. We were each given a candle and entered the next
chamber to sit between black partitions and became part of the ceremony. Mixing
earnest tradition with something completely left-field and quirky, a black
revolving Pilates Trapeze Machine was at the centre of the performance. Soprano
Rebecca Hilder lay on the table whilst singing and sparingly doing quasi
Pilates exercises. Perhaps the Pilates table was an oblique reference to the
modern daily ritual for some people? Whilst it seemed a bit cheeky it didn’t diminish the
sophistication of this contemporary opera.
In the centre of this ritualistic darkness Hilder’s
strong female voice sang like a flame – sensual and flickering. The rain poured
on the tin roof and for a moment a festival helicopter ride choggammed above as
if it was part of Con Koukias’s sublime composition.
Whilst the work was not created in direct response
to Queenstown, and was actually commissioned by MONA FOMA, it was transporting and gave an angel’s voice to the commemorative services
held over the weekend.
