“The Sunken City” – that is the title of Violeta Dinescu’s children’s opera, which is being co-performed by school pupils from Oldenburg. Students from the Institute of Music have prepared the production. The result will soon be on display for all to admire.
“For me, it is always a miracle and a gift to be able to experience music and singing on stage, and it is an inspiring feeling to be able to play a part in it,” says Violeta Dinescu, Professor of Applied Composition at the University of Oldenburg, who has been retired for some time. This feeling is likely to be particularly strong when the piece currently being rehearsed is one she has written herself: Dinescu is present for the first time today as a project group rehearses the children’s opera she composed, *The Sunken City*. What makes it special is that Dinescu’s opera for children is being staged by the students specifically as an opera featuring children; alongside a small professional orchestra and three singers, a school class from Oldenburg will also be on stage.
Dinescu wrote her work in the style of Romanian children’s songs, which had a profound effect on her. In the opera, the young protagonist Silja is whisked away to an enchanting underwater world after a seagull tells her about a beautiful city that was swept down to the seabed by a storm surge long ago. Silja soon finds herself in the city in question, which can only surface for half an hour every seven years. The people of the city long for their liberation and pin all their hopes on the girl. Silja tries to save them, but to do so she needs the help of a mysterious talisman… The one-hour piece premiered in Mainz in 2008 and has since been performed at a total of three venues. It is now set to be performed for the first time in Oldenburg on Sunday 23 April in the Staatstheater’s Exerzierhalle. Two performances are scheduled, the first at 11.00 am and the second at 4.00 pm.
Under the direction of Volker Schindel, an artistic staff member at the Institute of Music specialising in ‘Music, Stage and Theatre’, six students are currently working alongside two singers from the Bremen University of the Arts and a professional singer from Oldenburg, three instrumentalists and children from Class 4a at Bloherfelde Primary School on the staging of the work and its musical realisation, which is being directed by Felix Schauren of the State Theatre. A second group of five students, led by the Oldenburg musicologist Associate Professor Dr Kadja Grönke, has taken on the task of providing the musical accompaniment for the piece and has compiled the programme for the opera.
The idea for the project came from Schindel and Grönke, and preparations have been underway since last summer. During the winter semester, those involved began the specific artistic planning for the production of the children’s opera, and rehearsals finally began in February, initially on the stage of the university’s auditorium. The students in Schindel’s group worked with the children to develop the choreography, put together the set design and took care of the costumes.
Working with the schoolchildren has broadened her horizons, reports education student Anne Kötz: “The children are taking to opera – a musical genre that is new to them – very well and approach this form of music with fewer preconceptions than many adults.” Her fellow student Saskia Altenschmidt, who is studying music and philosophy to become a teacher, has had a similar experience: “The practical experience of working with schoolchildren that I’ve gained through the project will also help me in my future career,” she is convinced.
The second group of students has put a great deal of energy and time into producing the programme booklet for the children’s opera. No easy task, as Grönke explains: “The booklet must be written in such a way that children – as our most important target group – are neither overwhelmed nor underchallenged by what they read. After all, they want to be taken seriously,” she says. The booklet will include, amongst other things, short profiles of the participating artists and a biography of Violeta Dinescu, says Andris Möring, a student teacher involved in the project. “We’re also introducing the work and explaining some of the background to its creation.” Grönke’s seminar group also gained a deeper understanding of the score, because: “Violeta Dinescu not only gives us plenty of inspiration to let our imaginations run wild, but also allows us to adapt her score and interpret it as we read it,” says Grönke happily.
The biggest challenge of the project, they say, was bringing together so many people of different ages and with varying backgrounds and levels of prior knowledge. Those involved agree that this has been a success so far. Merle Hinrichsen, a student of special educational needs and music, also emphasises this: “The division of labour between adults and children has worked very well. Working together on the opera has been a wonderful experience for me!”
Very soon, the audience will be swept away by *The Sunken City* and taken on an imaginative journey to another world. The story of the young heroine Silja, who tries to save the inhabitants of the sunken city, is intended to encourage children to shape their own futures on their own terms. After all, as Violeta Dinescu puts it, “art serves as a dress rehearsal for life.”
The project is being realised with the support of klangpol – Netzwerk Neue Musik Nordwest, as well as the Universitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg e.V. and the Dialogkonzerte at the University of Oldenburg.
