The Ice Child

Electr’opera

Music: Zack Settel
Original Concept and Stage Direction: Pauline Vaillancourt

L’Enfant des glaces [The Ice Child] (2000)

Description

Invited to take part in a residency program by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in 2000, Pauline Vaillancourt, inspired by a true event, created this metaphorical Electr’opera about duality and the passage of time. L’Enfant des glaces (The Ice Child), a mommy, the victim of an Incan sacrifice ritual, was discovered at the summit of the Andes Mountains at the end of the 20th century.

Zack Settel presents the electroacoustic music in real time. The spacialization of the sound creates a “sound body”, and the use of voice modification software in real time supports the drama
Two short poems by De Nerval and Quevedo — translated into Armenian, Japonese, Persian, Russian, Finnish and Pular — become modified and fragmented sonic materials
Yves Labelle’s video, projected on a water screen, supports the set design as an electronic set element

“Through the clouds being chased away by the wind, I saw many moons passing by very rapidly. I thought that the Earth had left its orbit and that it had become like a boat without sails, travelling to, or away, from the stars that were getting bigger or smaller.”

— Gérard de Nerval

“Yesterday has left, tomorrow does not yet exist,
Today is advancing without rest:
I am one, who was, who will be, who is, very tired.”

— Francisco de Quevedo