Luminato 2018: Tables Turned

Vocal maven Carla Huhtanen, soprano, joins forces with Montreal composer, turn table artist, and electronics specialist Nicole Lizée and genre-bending percussionist Ben Reimers for a boundary-breaking, multi-media concert. Lizee’s signature destabilization of classic film (selections from Alfred Hitchcock and The Sound of Music) and video recordings (Maria Callas) are projected alongside the performers, whose turn tables and vocals fight and fuse in live duet. Tables Turned reconfigures iconic moments in film and opera, blurring lines between the real and re-imagined in a captivating display of electronic and vocal virtuosity.

Reprised this season as part of the Luminato festival, Tables Turned premiered originally as a part of Tap:Ex (Tapestry Explorations) Tapestry’s annual experimental production in 2015, Tap:Ex explores modes through which opera might assume a 21st century rebirth. In its first year, Tap:Ex took the language of contemporary dance and physical theatre and fused them with opera: choreographer Marie-Josée Chartier and director Michael Hidetoshi Mori pushed the limits of physical-vocal synthesized expression. This editions Tap:Ex combined the virtuosic beauty of the bel canto voice with live manipulation of the turn table and recut video from three 20th century icons.