Eurydice, a descent into infinity

E U R Y D I C E

INTO INFINITY

This production is the result of a collaboration between Studio Nergens, Silbersee and VIA ZUID within the framework of The Performing Arts Fund NL’s New Maker scheme

— from The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

“What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”

Eurydice, a descent into infinity is a Virtual Reality opera inspired by the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. A solitary journey to an in-between space, between matter and eternity, in which time fades and the laws of space become obsolete. Eurydice’s hypnotic singing draws you deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of corridors, ruins and balustrades, beyond which dizzying depths and vistas open up.

I wanted to create an experience in which Eurydice takes the audience on a sensory journey inwards, to a place that we fear and long for at the same time. It is like standing on Kundera’s observation tower: Eurydice “is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”

For centuries we have mused on the infinity of our soul, which after death leaves our body behind as a temporary shell and itself resumes to wander – whether by reincarnating, ascending to a heaven or being uploaded to the cloud. These are all desires based on the contradiction between the deceptive material world and a higher eternal reality in which we find our peace. This contradiction fascinates me.

During the making of Eurydice, various questions haunted me. I wondered if death was an intimate homecoming, or rather a journey that would take me far away from myself. Is this “nothingness” the core of our being, of our soul? Or is it an inhuman place and do I belong with both feet firmly on solid ground?

The experience will be different for every person, so feel free to interpret it in your own way. I hope that it has been a journey in which you, in some way, discovered aspects of yourself that were previously unknown. Maybe you found out that you are afraid of the dark. Or maybe you felt that you were attracted to that infinite nothingness. Perhaps even a bit of both simultaneously.

With this booklet we want to lead you past the backgrounds and sources that have been the inspiration of Eurydice. We want to give you the opportunity, as a lasting memory, to read the libretto again at your leisure. That way, once you have grounded yourself back in reality, you’ll be able to revisit the atmospheres and impressions you gained during the experience.

CELINE DAEMEN Director Studio Nergens (Studio Nowhere)

“They climbed the upward path, through absolute silence, Up the steep murk, clouded in pitchy darkness, They were near the margin, near the upper land, When he, afraid that she might falter, eager to see her, Looked back in love, and she was gone, in a moment. Was it he, or she, reaching out arms and trying To hold or to be held, and clasping nothing But empty air?”

Eurydice, a descent into infinity is inspired by the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It is one of the most famous myths of world literature. The story inspired a variety of artists (painters, writers and composers) and was the subject of the very first operas, when the genre was born in Italy around 1600.

After the death of his beloved Eurydice, singer Orpheus is left with an unbearable grief and loss. Through brilliant poetry and song, Orpheus, who according to myth is able to move even rocks and wild animals, manages to convince the gods to grant permission to do what no mortal is granted: to descend into the realm of shadows while living, and retrieve his beloved. But the gods impose one condition: he must not look back at his beloved until both have returned from the realm of shadows. Orpheus violates the condition set for him: he looks back and loses his beloved to the underworld for good.

Every time we read or hear the story (in all its various versions) we ask ourselves the same question: why did he look back? Was he overcome by desire? Was he unsure if Eurydice was following him? Or did Orpheus make a poet’s choice: did he choose the passing of things, the memory of Eurydice?

H E M Y T H

You walked in front of me, pulling me back out to the green light that had once grown fangs and killed me.

I was obedient, but numb, like an arm gone to sleep; the return to time was not my choice.

By then I was used to silence. Though something stretched between us like a whisper, like a rope: my former name, drawn tight. You had your old leash with you, love you might call it, and your flesh voice.

Before your eyes you held steady the image of what you wanted me to become: living again. It was this hope of yours that kept me following.

I was your hallucination, listening and floral, and you were singing me: already new skin was forming on me within the luminous misty shroud of my other body; already there was dirt on my hands and I was thirsty.

I could see only the outline of your head and shoulders, black against the cave mouth, and so could not see your face at all, when you turned

and called to me because you had already lost me. The last I saw of you was a dark oval. Though I knew how this failure would hurt you, I had to fold like a gray moth and let go.

You could not believe I was more than your echo.

Orpheus (1), Margaret Atwood

A human has a body

Just one, like one alone, The soul has had enough Of its continuous frame

With all its ears and eyes

The size of a silver coin And skin like scarves on scarves, As if hung on a rack.

It flies out through the cornea Into the heavenly clearness, Upon the icy spoke, Upon the bird-drawn chariot And listens through the bars Of its own living prison

To the crack of woods and fields, To the horn of seven seas.

A bodiless soul is shameful, Like a body without its garment,No reasoning or deed, No impetus or line. A riddle without solution: Who will return again, From dancing on that stage, Where nobody is dancing?

And I dream of another Soul dressed in different clothes: It burns and runs across From timidity to hope, With fire that leaves the earth, Like spirit without a shadow, Leaving a bunch of lilac On the table for remembrance.

Run, child, don't lament For poor Eurydice, And chase your copper hoop With a stick around the world, While, still hardly audible, Joyfully and dryly, In answer to each step The earth resounds in your ears.

Eurydice, Arseny Tarkovsky

U R Y D I C E

A great inspiration for Eurydice, a descent into infinity were the ideas of Belgian philosopher Patricia De Martelaere. In her essay What Remains she examines whether everything is transitory or whether there is also something deeper that remains. She takes us to the space between the impermanent “something” and the infinite “nothing”, which she believes is the primal ground of what we are.

“Our deepest identity is not that of the images that fill our consciousness, but that of the void or nothingness that lies between these images.”

“There is an absolute support, but it is not some-thing — and this seems to make perfect sense, for if it were some-thing, it would inevitably also be subject to becoming and impermanence. Rather, there is, literally, nothing that remains — it is the nothing itself that remains, and to this great nothing we ourselves belong.

Our great mistake — which causes our great desperation — is thus to think of ourselves as ‘some-thing’ in the midst of the inhospitable and threatening nothingness. In reality, it rather is the opposite: the nothing is our home and our soul, while it is precisely the something that lures us away from it and imprisons us in its veils.

But no-thing is not only the true form of the self, it is also the primal ground of all reality. What is true of the contents of our consciousness is just as true of the supposed things outside of us (which, by the way, we do not know other than in the form of contents of consciousness). As long as we regard them as ‘things’, with a positive identity of their own, they afflict us by their ‘desperating’ — the variety and impermanence — but as we learn to see them as manifestations of an indefinite presence (‘not-something’), everything becomes one and infinite.”

— from Wat Blijft (What Remains), Patricia De Martelaere

O M E T H I N G

LIBRETTO

EURYDICE, A DESCENT INTO INFINITY

near the fresh water I lie, Naiad, Naiad

near the light falls the shadow, my silhouette

frees itself singing from my skin my skin a singing circle a trembling silence as the reeds tremble by the rushes so I tremble, Eurydice, so my skin bursts at the seams so I, a thin membrane, shoot across the fresh water in pursuit of myself mercy, mercy because rest arises when dark coolness plunges coolness into darkness until I rest and my breath catches, so I shoot to the surface

so I gasp for my song, air pants from my lung motion, motion splits

into brightening warmth and dark coolness that must stay separate and always suffused with each other and arising in and out of each other the breath in the song the skin from the shadow

from the dark coolness surges the brightening warmth inflamed, inflamed until alight with warmth until the brightening song and the dark silhouette sing in false unison of how each in turn swallows the other spews it up turns it inside out because the warm coolness and the brightening dark are in battle in love in motion they lie in myself in my hand that reaches out of myself almost to myself

I was warm and bright and a winding

in eternal endlessness in the all, but I fall as the shadow falls from the light beyond the light tumbling, barely touching I skim across the fresh water Naiad, Naiad who will sing me close who will rock me in the husk of the cosmos in the core of the small, who will hold me so, so close to the skin I nearly vanish: in the dark coolness nearly the drop in the brightening warmth nearly the spark who will lay me back in my contours who will lay me back in my skin who will hiss the reeds into silence who will bring the rustling of the rushes back in line near the fresh water I lie, Naiad, Naiad

I am a trembling line, Eurydice, a quivering membrane in the quavering of the endless song that grieves in the dark coolness

for what is warm and bright and winds in the warm bright winding

I sing mercy, mercy for coolness, for shadow finally falling back into light tumbling, because rest disguises itself as dark coolness plunges into the dark, the cool so I shoot to the surface so I gasp for my song pant from my lung the air that gives rise to motion motion splits into brightening warmth and dark coolness that must stay separate and always suffused with each other and arising in and out of each other in the song the breath from the shadow the skin into what is dark and cool surges the brightening warmth until the brightening song and the dark silhouette sing in false unison of how each in turn turns the other inside out swallows it spews it up

for the warm coolness and the brightening dark are in battle in love in motion they lie near the fresh water in me, Naiad, Naiad

near the light falls the shadow, my silhouette frees itself singing from my skin my skin a singing circle a trembling hush as the reeds tremble by the rushes so I tremble, Eurydice, so my skin bursts at the seams so I, a thin membrane, shoot across the fresh water in pursuit of myself mercy, mercy was I warm and bright and a winding after all in eternal endlessness in the all, but I fall as the shadow falls from the light beyond the light again tumble after tumble I skim across the fresh water barely touching

who will sing me close who will rock me in the husk of the cosmos in the core of the small, who will hold me so, so close I nearly vanish in the dark coolness I become the drop in the brightening warmth I am the spark oh, the breathing song woe, the skinlike shadow who will lay me back in my lines who will sing me whole again who will grieve for that creature, warm and bright and winding and in that bright warm winding

I sing mercy, mercy I sing for coolness, for shadow finally back into light falls near the fresh water I lie, Naiad, Naiad

near the light falls the shadow, my silhouette frees itself singing from my skin my skin a singing circle

trembling hush as the reeds tremble by the rushes so I tremble, Eurydice, so my skin bursts at the seams so I, a thin membrane, shoot off in pursuit of myself

across the fresh water there I go, there I go because rest is deceptive a brightening warmth

plunging under what seems warm and bright

I sink through the surface where it breathes, dark and cool, where its breath soon runs short the way the singing shoots out of the song the way the soul bursts from the skin and I shoot, shy and timeless, through the dark coolness I am a motion a motion that splits that splits into brightening warmth into warmth and brightness how they separate, how they emerge in and out of themselves the dark coolness and the brightening warmth

the woman out of her skin the heat out of the heart the sound of the song suppressed the one’s false note making the other whole again until the brightening song and the dark silhouette each in turn resemble the other spew it up invert it and in battle in love in this motion I lay myself in my hand reaching out of myself towards myself touch me then if I was warm and bright after all and a winding as I once was in eternal endlessness in the all where the shadow falls from the light beyond the light tumbling, barely touching I skim past the rushes past the reeds that tremble Naiad, Naiad won’t you sing for me won’t you rock me in your quavering song hold me so close to the skin so, so close that I

simply vanish like the spark in the brightening warmth like the drop in the dark coolness simply turning into line and flesh

woman and heat last of all a singing heart that bids the reeds be silent—shhhhhhhh

I hiss a breath, I shush the membrane across the fresh water Naiad, Naiad warm and bright and a winding

I fall into the mercy of the song that sounds in the all in the light tumbling I fall, Eurydice, into the skin falls the heart into the heat in which dark coolness disguises itself as bathing light, as deeper warmth so I shoot to the surface, there I gasp for my song that sings for breath for breath that splits in every motion in – the brightening warmth out – the cool darkness

and in and out and infused throughout with that endless splitting into one another they become one and in their oneness separate like the silhouette and the skin like the song and the breath lacerate inflame each other until the brightening song and the dark silhouette

sing in false unison Eurydice, Eurydice, in battle in love in motion I lie in eternal endlessness in the all

where again and again and again I fall back into my lines fall into the brightening warmth where the shadow bursts out of the light beyond the light, barely touching

I shoot out of my skin I skim across the fresh water who will rock me who will hold me who will mourn my fate in the husk of the cosmos vanished into the very small like the drop in the dark coolness

the way the spark vanished into the brightening warmth

the way the breath went into the song the way the skin covered my silhouette

no one will sing me whole nobody mourns forever now even the rushes and the reeds have stopped their singing mercy, mercy so far away

I sound, who hears the bursting, who hears the hissing, the quivering of the membrane pulled taut between the dark coolness and the brightening warmth each in turn into and out of the other choking, stomaching, aching for each other near the fresh water I lie Naiad, Naiad

near the light falls the shadow, my silhouette frees itself singing from my skin my skin a singing circle a trembling silence as the reeds tremble by the rushes

so I tremble, Eurydice, so my skin bursts at the seams and I, a thin membrane, shoot across the fresh water in pursuit of myself in the eternal all mercy, mercy,

— Charlotte Van den Broeck

CELINE DAEMEN Director

“I was not only inspired by the myth, the many existing interpretations, the words of Milan Kundera and the ideas of Patricia De Martelaere, all of which can be read in this booklet. Most inspiring was the wealth of ideas from Aron, Charlotte, Kate, Wouter and Sterre. We have tried to truly merge our various disciplines into a complete experience. The libretto is inseparable from the rhythm and melody. The composition is a spatial experience. The virtual spaces are not a backdrop, but intrinsically linked to the dramaturgy of the experience. It moves me to work this intimately with my team.”

Celine Daemen (1995) is a director of transdisciplinary art. Her work can be situated at the intersection between theatre, music, visual arts and technology. After graduating the Academy of Performative Arts Maastricht, she made several productions in which immersion in both music and a virtual environment form the common thread. Thematically, questions on “being” are central to her work. Celine wants to create sensory experiences that invite the audience to gaze inwards. This journey inwards takes them to a place where personal associations arise in response to universal philosophical questions.

ARON FELS

Virtual Art Director

“In the original myth, Orpheus is granted access to the underworld: as the only mortal, he is allowed to travel between two worlds. In my design, I sought to find out how this in-between world would manifest itself to a mortal. That is why I chose ‘point clouds’: a technique that, in millions of points, or dust particles, refers to our reality, but is also transparent and intangible. All the scenery you see is handmade in miniature, then scanned and virtually enlarged. The enormous rock walls are made of aquarium stones that fit in my hand. Through impressive vistas and enchanting spaces, I want to give the audience a sense of insignificance.”

Aron Fels (1992) is an Art Director for Virtual Reality. In 2017, he graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in Immersive Media and Visual Effects. Inspired by new technologies, he seeks new ways of designing and telling immersive stories. In his design he looks for magical-realistic worlds in which Romanticism and Impressionism are his main sources of inspiration.

CHARLOTTE

VAN DEN BROECK Librettist

“In the poem for the libretto, I looked for a way to give a linguistic expression to the concept of ‘infinite space’. For this I experimented with rhythm and a demarcated visual field that could reproduce itself endlessly on the basis of the verse-technical deployment of repetition and shift. Content wise, the focus was on giving voice to Eurydice. In mythology and later adaptations of the story, her role is quite passive. Her experience is pretty much limited to the words ‘woe is me’. I chose to have her sing to herself in the tension between her physical and metaphysical guise.”

Charlotte Van den Broeck (1991) studied English and German Literature and holds a Master in Drama (Verbal Arts) at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp. She has published two collections of poetry. Her debut collection Chameleon (2015) was awarded the Herman de Coninck Debut Prize for poetry. For her second collection Nachtroer (2017) she received the triannual Paul Snoek Prize for the best collection of poetry in Dutch. Her poetry has been translated into German, French, Spanish, Afrikaans, Serbian and English.

KATE MOORE Composer

“I was inspired by the words of Charlotte, which are beautiful. While composing the melody, I had an image in my mind that remained with me constantly through the creative process: the image of water trickling deeper into the subterranean depths. I love the adventure of entering a dark tunnel into a world of song. I hope the listener becomes a wanderer, lured into a mysterious underworld by a mysterious voice — exploring the strange place between walls like a spirit that passes through matter, in an alternative dimension. Grasping what cannot be touched, desiring what cannot be obtained.”

Kate Moore (1979) is an internationally acclaimed composer. In 2022 she was nominated for the Gieskes-Strijbis Podium Prize. In 2017, Kate was awarded the prestigious Dutch composition award, The Matthijs Vermeulen Prize. Kate holds a doctorate from the Sydney University Conservatorium of Music, a master’s from The Royal Conservatory of The Hague and an honours degree from the Australian National University, where she received the University Medal, majoring in composition and electroacoustic composition.

WOUTER SNOEI Sound Designer and Composer

“For Eurydice, I composed and produced the electronic sound layer that is present during the entire experience. For the interplay with Kate’s music, I drew inspiration from the images of the spaces in the experience. The grand vistas and sometimes crumbling walls, as well as the tension and energy, I tried to make audible with a layered and spatial sound world that can go beyond direct comprehension. There are so many layers of sound on top of each other that you will not be able to hear everything at once. Within this world, the voice of Eurydice moves, sometimes far away and then again close by, surreal yet tangible.”

Since graduating from the Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in 2000, Wouter Snoei (1977) has been active as a composer and performer of electronic and electroacoustic music. He has performed both in the Netherlands and abroad, with a growing focus on music theatre in recent years. He is also active as a software designer and sound engineer with a specialisation in spatial music.

STERRE KONIJN

Singer

“To me, Kate’s composition has a timeless, folk-like character. It seems to be very old, but sounds modern at the same time. The Eurydice we wanted to portray is vulnerable and determined. She is human and elusive, intimate and infinite, animated and rarefied. I feel very connected to Celine’s work. She can make themes like infinity and ‘the inbetween’ human and emotional. I tried to incorporate that into the singing.”

With her interest in music, language and theatre, Sterre Konijn (1987) has developed an adventurous performance practice. Her repertoire ranges from tango to classical avantgarde and from Bulgarian folk to jazz. She plays in modern music theatre productions, composes and plays the violin, duduk and theremin. She won the Concours de la Chanson Alliance Française. She sings at renowned traditional music halls, but also on a dunghill at a farm and even airborne, above Florence. Her debut album een (2021) was received with praise.

CAST & CREW

Concept and Direction Celine Daemen — Virtual Art Direction Aron Fels — Libretto Charlotte Van den Broeck — Composition Kate Moore — Sound Design and Composition Wouter Snoei — Vocals Sterre Konijn

Design Physical Space Scott Robin Jun — Modelling Assets Yannick Verweij — Assistant VR Design Eline Oppewal and Tommy Jansen — FX Cyriel Verkuijlen — Technical Development Malou Minkjan — Translation Libretto David McKay

STUDIO NERGENS

Studio Nergens (Studio Nowhere) is an investigative, poetic and multiform expression centred around director Celine Daemen. Together with varying collaborators and artists, Studio Nergens forms transdisciplinary symbioses.

This VR opera was developed within the New Maker scheme in collaboration with Silbersee and VIA ZUID. With this scheme, The Performing Arts Fund NL provides a subsidy for beginning talented makers to develop themselves in a longer trajectory, in collaboration with companies, venues and festivals. Celine was awarded this grant for the years 2022 and 2023.

SILBERSEE — Producer

Silbersee is an innovative production house for unorthodox opera and music theatre, suited for a wide audience. With the human voice in all its unique aspects in mind, Silbersee commits to still undiscovered forms and surprising collaborations with widely varying genres and disciplines.

Artistic Leader Romain Bischoff — Business Leader Katrien Sitters — Creative Producer Dominique Slegers — Project Guidance Jan Van den Bossche — Producer and Tour Manager Isha Plug — PR Imke Muriël van Herk — Sales Jimmy-Pierre de Graaf — Sustainability Manager Stella van Himbergen

VIA ZUID — Co-producer VIA ZUID is a talent development organisation for the

professional performing arts in and from Limburg. VIA ZUID supports beginning, talented makers such as choreographers, performers, directors, writers and composers on their way to an independent professional practice.

Artistic Director Jackie Smeets — Business Director Ton Driessen — Artistic Developer Joost Segers — PR Maaike Frencken

Thanks to coaches Romain Bischoff (mentor), Jan Van den Bossche (dramaturgy and communication), Guido Jansen (dramaturgy), Yannis Kyriakides (music), Ravian van den Hil (context), Elke Müller (philosophy), Toffey (marketing), Roelof Terpstra (technology)

Thanks to Luca Meisters, Sanne Smits, Olivier Herter, Josette Daemen, Anna Verkouteren Jansen, Loek Daemen, Ank Aerts, Effenaar Smart Venue

CREDITS Texts p. 3 from Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984, Faber and Faber, translation by Michael Henry Heim p. 6 Ovid, Metamorphoses, Winifred Davies and Indiana University Press, translation by Rolfe Humphries p. 8 Margaret Atwood, Orpheus (1), from Selected Poems II, 1976-1986, vol 2, Mariner Books p. 9 Arseny Tarkovsky, Eurydice from Zemlje-Zemnoje, translation by Alex Nemser and Nariman Skakov p. 10-11 Patricia De Martelaere, The not-something from Wat blijft, 2002, Stichting Maand van de Filosofie en Patricia De Martelaere p. 14-19 Charlotte Van den Broeck, Libretto‘Eurydice, a descent into infinity’, translation David McKay Images Aron Fels Redaction Celine Daemen, Romy Heymans and Imke Muriël van Herk Graphic Design Lise Bruyneel - la fabrique des regards

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