Katharina Schmitt & Michal Rataj - A Study of Aphasia
Music
Michal Rataj
Librettist and director
Katharina Schmitt
Dramaturgy
Viktorie Knotková
Stage design
Pavel Svoboda
Light design
Zuzana Režná
Costumes
Patricia Talacko
Sound
Matěj Šenkyřík
Photographers
Lena Luga & Martin Popelář
Cast
Katalin Károlyi, mezzosoprano
Ivana Uhlířová, actress
Andrej Gál, violoncello, percussion
Tiburtina Ensemble (Barbora Kabátková, Ivana Bilej Brouková, Anna Chadimová Havlíková, Kamila Mazalová)
Michal Rataj, electronics
Premiere
August 29th 2020, New Opera Days Ostrava
A Study of Aphasia is a music-theatre piece for mezzosoprano, violoncello, female vocal quartet, live electronics and one actress exploring the human voice as a marker of identity. In his book Children’s Speech and Aphasia (1918), Austrian linguist Emil Fröschels describes the relationship between the development of language skills, speech impediments and psychology. Among other topics, Fröschels focuses on the area of speech loss or aphasia. Inspired by Fröschels’ book and one scene from Ingmar Bergman's film Persona, in which an actress loses her voice, Schmitt and Rataj explore language, speech and voice. For them, the question, “who speaks?” is just as important as the question, “who cannot speak?” or, “who cannot be heard?” The dramaturgical frame of the piece is based on the confrontation between a mute and a speaking character, resulting in a broad palette of different vocal expressions such as singing, Sprechgesang, whispering, speaking and screaming.