Art
I happened upon the promo for William Kentridge’s Opera “Waiting for The Sibyl” at the Sydney Opera House by algorithm fluke and have now secured tickets. I had hoped to also hear and see the great man in his pre-show talk on November 3 but it had sold out. Maybe you will be lucky with a cancellation, I was told, but I will see the opera in the Dame Joan Sutherland theatre at 7.30 and will probably line up at the pre-show talk room just in case. I have and treasure the wordless drawing book he produced for this opera in the pre covid days and immerse myself regularly in it’s profound simplicity.
“Waiting for The Sibyl” has toured the USA and Johannesburg – where Kentridge lives – in the last two years, after Covid. It is a significant creation and event and to have it come to Australia needs to be seen as the highlight it is. Kentridge has been represented by Annandale Galleries [ Sydney] since 2004.
Quote below: “The Saturday Paper” September 9, 2023
“Kentridge is refreshingly open and respectful about how his work should be perceived. Is there anything, I ask, that he would very much like Australian audiences to have in their mind heading into a performance of Sibyl?
He pauses. “I suppose the key thing is that there’s not an answer,” he says. “There’s not a single meaning I’m trying to give, there’s not a key to the text that emerges. It’s to allow their eyes and their ears to do the thinking. To see if ideas or associations are provoked by the music and the texts and what they’re seeing, rather than feel there’s a correct interpretation which they’re either getting or missing.”
He smiles. “Relax into the performance,” he says. “And the performance will do its work, and you will meet it halfway.”
“Hear from the world-renowned visionary artist
William Kentridge, whose work never ceases to mesmerise, describes himself as an artist who makes drawings which sometimes are made into animated films. And sometimes there are performers in front of the animation and the work becomes theatre and opera – a drawing in four dimensions, in space, and extending over time.
With Sibyl, Kentridge has somehow captured the zeitgeist, tapping into our deepest uncertainties about the future. What process allows this to happen?
In his work, the ideas traverse in multiple directions from an initial impulse – an image or a phrase – to drawing, to idea, to metaphor, to image, and back again. His Johannesburg studio becomes an embodiment of these processes of discovery and the artist works – often in collaboration with fellow South African artists, musicians, dancers, and actors – toward a penetrating and resonant vision of our world. It’s work where ambiguity and contradiction are not just “mistakes at the edge of understanding, but the way in which our understanding is constructed.
In this lecture with stunning visuals, William Kentridge invites us on the journey of his artistic practice through the making of Sibyl, and other works.”
Sydney Opera House presents:
“An evening divided into two parts: The Moment Has Gone, a short film with live piano and chorus, and Waiting for the Sibyl, a chamber opera based on the ancient Greek priestess who wrote prophecies on leaves to scatter in the wind. Taken together, they bridge the gap between the ancient and the modern in a story of searching for certainty in an uncertain world.“
From http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com
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