GAIA-24. Opera del mondo by Opera Aperta, composed by Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko, will be performed on 26 October at the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.
The performance will conclude the public programme of the Ukrainian pavilion, organised by the Ukrainian Institute.
“GAIA-24 is an ‘Opera del Mondoʼ – a term with several historical contexts. One such reference is architect Aldo Rossi’s ‘Teatro del Mondo,’ – a floating theatre that was created for the 1980 Venice Biennale and lasted for two seasons – one in Venice and the next on the other side of the Adriatic Sea in Dubrovnik. Similarly, our opera – born on the banks of the Dnipro River near the front line and premiered in Kyiv, Rotterdam, and Vienna at a time when floods were sweeping across Europe – now flows along the waterways of Europe. This time, it reaches the Venetian lagoon, where the green waters remind us of the Dnipro between Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” says composer Illia Razumeiko.
The opera GAIA-24 is dedicated to the devastating consequences of the Russian explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station on 6 June 2023. The work invokes Gaia, the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. And also to the hypothesis of the same name, proposed by scientists in the 1980s, according to which the Earth, as a planet, is a living self-regulating organism.
“For the second time, the Ukrainian Institute co-organises the public programme of the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and for the second time it happens at the time of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. This year’s public programme is dedicated to the themes of Land and Water. The GAIA-24 opera in the space of the mediaeval church of San Lorenzo in Venice, a city on the water, acquires an additional symbolism of dialogue between the experiences of war and the challenges that all humanity is facing now,” says Anastasia Manuliak, Head of the Visual Art at the Ukrainian Institute.
The opera blends the transforming landscape, the human body, and the theatre stage into an open musical and theatrical process-ritual. The performance has three acts. The first, Songs of Mother Earth, features music worldwide. The second, Cabaret Metastasis, includes scenes based on nude body plasticity. The third, Dance for Mother Earth, is a carnival of musical genres, ranging from rap to folk songs. The performance lasts approximately 90 minutes.
‘The Goethe-Institut in Ukraine has already made a significant contribution to the successful and high-level presentation of Ukraine at the Venice Biennale. It is a great honour for us to contribute to the public programme and to bring to the audience through the presentation of GAIA-24 a topic that is particularly important to us and that is already covered in various forms in the programmes of the Goethe-Institut in Ukraine: the catastrophic consequences of the Russian aggressive war for people and nature. The ecocidal aspect of this terrorist war is still not sufficiently recognised by the world community,’ said Fabian Mülltaler, Director of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine.
The world premiere of the opera took place this year in May in Kyiv. After that, GAIA-24 opened the O.Festival in the Netherlands. On 18 September, it was performed in Vienna. After Venice, the team will perform in Berlin.
‘We support the Ukrainian National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale because we believe art can speak where words are powerless. Opera is not just music, it is a form of shared experience that penetrates the depths of the human soul, opening new horizons of understanding and unity. The public programme of the Ukrainian Pavilion is an opportunity to let the world feel the power of the Ukrainian spirit through the language of art, which unites, inspires, and creates space for dialogue,’ Yana Barinova, Project Manager for European Policy and Relations with Ukraine, ERSTE Foundation
The Ukrainian pavilion’s public programme is organised by the Ukrainian Institute in partnership with the Ukrainian pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, ERSTE Foundation, TBA 21, Ocean Space and OPERA APERTA – laboratory for contemporary opera, proto produkciia agency and supported by Museums for Ukraine initiative.
The 60th Venice Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, runs until November 24, 2024, with the theme “Foreigners Everywhere.”
For more information about the Ukrainian pavilion’s public programme, please follow the link.
