Symphony orchestra

Nothing. Almost

Images for vocals, instruments and electronics (2020)

Nothing. Almost is a scenic composition closest to opera. What doesn’t make it an “opera” is the way of using the text that can hardly be called a libretto. I picked six of Kharm’s stories/poems that are not unified in terms of content, nor characters throughout the whole composition represent a particular individual. This is more about presenting some texts like in a collection of selected short stories. Or even, given their vagueness and absurdity, dash or image. Precisely because of that and in the title itself I prefer to use the word Images rather than Opera… What somewhat unites the stories themselves is the narrator (Actor1) who appears in different numbers and he is to some extent the only permanent individual (if the role of the narrator could be called that at all).

As if it really was a collection of different stories, I wanted to take the possibility to use different approaches to instrumentation in different musical numbers. In doing so, I did not want only (and always) to use singers to be the bearers of the action, I wanted sometimes to single out certain solo instruments and place them on stage as if it is a chamber work. With this, the idea was to emphasize their own individuality and actively involve the players themselves in the “action”. This piece, as well as the theoretical analysis about it, was the theses of my Master’s degree in Composition in 2020. Link for full score. Link for analysis (in Croatian).