The work stems from the books of Beverly Biderman "Wired fro Sound: a journey into hearing" and George Johnson "Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe", and excerpts from Empedocles and Portuguese poet Antero de Quental.
Biderman is the Canadian woman who after a long period of profound deafness received cochlear implants and described her new experience trying to learn again how to hear. In her description we learn how we first gained that capacity in the first place. Henrietta Leavitt is the astronomer, also deaf, who produced the ground work that allowed us to measure the universe while she listened to the beat of the stars. Empedocles is the Greek philosopher who produced the first know theory about the ear and hearing. They are the characters of this story.
Deafness is indeed a thread in the narrative but TMIE tries to address other questions, namely the relation between the outside world (our surroundings, our own personal interior environment) and the inner world of our thoughts, our consciousness, dare I say our soul. From the spirals of the cochlea to the spirals of the galaxies
Marina Pacheco, the soprano, sings three different roles in this production which also features an all electronically produced music track (the Kyma system was used entirely for this production), based upon the composer's version of roulette curves applied to sound parameters. This is played through a 10 speaker system which creates the acoustic space of the opera. The performance space is defined by a specially produced video, designed to serve as setting and lighting.
Here you'll find additional information about the work.
After the premier "TMIE" will be touring some venues both in Portugal and abroad.
