Hippocampus or Lonely - Presentation

Synopsis

Hear music from this piece:

Track 1 | Track 2 | Track 3 | Track 4 | Track 5

Hippocampus or Lonely - a chamber opera for five singers - is about a woman in love with her tattoo.

It is set in a neutral space dominated by a pink sofa made of leather resembling human skin. It is Eva's skin. A tattoo of Hippocampus often sits on the sofa.

Eva, a young woman, lives alone. She has given names to some of her furniture and talks to them. The fridge is Arthur, the mirror is Sisi and the wardrobe Karin. She has a tattoo of a seahorse (Hippocampus Hippocampus) on her skin.

Every midnight, she is visited by a stranger. It is her tattoo, which comes to life and changes into a young man. He can't speak, because the seahorse has no mouth tattooed on it. She loves him. The tattoo could change into a real man and Eva would not be lonely anymore. It is easier to love an imaginary being than a real man.

Eva's father was a doctor. A long time ago, he put a book of neurology under the fridge to reduce the noise it made. The fridge, Arthur, has read the book and become an amateur mental expert. The fridge finds out that Eva's strange behavior is caused by problems with her brain, particularly one part of it called the hippocampus. This neural structure affects the formation of emotions and sexual behaviour.

Eva's former schoolmates, Molly and Peggy, invite her to a party. Eva decides to come to the disco with the seahorse, her new partner. Peggy and Molly laugh at Eva; they have never liked one another. The club's barman is Arthur, the fridge. It is not clear whether the party is real or if it is only Eva's hallucination. At midnight the seahorse appears. Eva thinks he kisses her schoolmates. She becomes jealous and runs away. Was it reality or just a sick dream?

Eva starts drinking. She wants to kill Hippocampus, her living tattoo. She starts cutting the tattoo on her skin with a razor. However she kills not only the tattoo but also herself. She is alone again.

Physicians find her dead body. They cannot understand how Eva could destroy such a beautiful tattoo. One of them also has a tattoo - a mermaid. It is Eva tattooed on the man's skin. The mermaid suddenly comes to life and sings a love aria, the same one that Eva used to sing to the seahorse.

Instrumentation

Violins (3), viola, cello, double bass, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trombone, harp, celeste.

Composer's note
Slavomir Solovic

Since beginning to compose Hippocampus, Slavo Solovic has mainly been concerned with the size of the chamber orchestra itself. Facing the predetermined limitations of such an orchestra for the first time, to his surprise he found the chamber group inspired his work and creativity. He had never been restricted in terms of resources during his previous works.

Another interesting thing for him was working with an orchestra. In the past, Solovic performed as a violinist in a symphony orchestra and also worked with an orchestra as a composer. Now, he will have an opportunity to watch the work of English musicians.

During the process of orchestration, the question of using electronic samples arose. Although Solovic uses 'samples' quite often and samples are a common means of expression in his work, he gave a great deal of consideration to their use in this opera. As a result, samples are not used in the whole work but only in selected scenes. For instance, the second part of the story takes place at the disco. It would have been easy to use samples in this part to create the sound of a real club. But the composer decided not to use electronics but pure classical instruments here.

On the other hand, samples are used in other scenes together with the orchestra, combining their sounds and thus creating a very interesting and special musical atmosphere.

Librettist's note
Viliam Klimácek

The writing of Hippocampus was a very challenging experience for Viliam Klimácek. Since he does not speak or write perfect English, the most difficult and also the most interesting aspect of this work was breaking through the language barrier. Although Klimácek has had much experience with theatre and drama, this was a new situation for him. All communication with the audience had to pass via a go-between: the interpreter. The libretto was translated into English by a young interpreter, Martin Solotruk. Consultations with mentor David Pountney were also extremely helpful.

Both artists hope that the English version of Hippocampus will work in the same way as the Slovak original. They believe that an English audience will also find bits of fine humour and irony, and appreciate the intentional use of archaism in the libretto.

Since Klimácek practised as a doctor for nine years, he decided to take as his subject the motives of an extremely lonesome and mentally ill woman. This topic itself is very serious and sad and it really asks for a glimpse of hope. This is done through delicate humour, tipping even the most tragic scenes into tragicomedy. Balancing irony and pathos is the desired approach, one typical of Viliam Klimácek's work.

Joint statement
by Slavomir Solovic and Viliam Klimácek

The creative duo of Slavo Solovic and Viliam Klimácek came together in 2000. Since then, they have completed six projects, three dramas and three operas, including Hippocampus. As they have worked together for some time, their cooperation and understanding of each other are excellent. Since they know each other well, once they began to work on Hippocampus, they could focus on the project without any interruption caused by establishing a new working relationship or working methods or by misunderstandings. Solovic and Klimácek work on the basis of full confidence and respect for one another. One finishes his work, presents it to his colleague and only after that are any comments offered.

For example, Slavo Solovic refused the first version of the libretto. For him, the story was stuffed with too many situations and motives. The composer's point of view helped the librettist and the story was changed. Viliam Klimácek then focused on Eva's motives, particularly her loneliness. On the other hand, the composer adopted and applied some musical ideas raised by Klimácek. They call the process 'temptations' - giving impulses to each other which, of course, either can freely accept or refuse.