Work
You Who Will Emerge from the Flood…
(2008—2017)
The first full-scale opera performed in and under water, continuation/culmination part of the 5 Fathoms Opera Project.
The work was conceived, developed, performed and directed by soprano Juliana Snapper and composer Andrew Infanti. Each performance involved the collaboration of local artists, professional and amateur, from the host city.
Juliana Snapper takes on the role of an amphibious hybrid animal named Blorkra that survived an ecological disaster (see synopsis).
Blorkra Audio excerpts
◼ “Dear Blorkra”
“Dear Blorkra” is an arietta-interlude.
Juliana Snapper's underwater vocalizations are mixed into a piano solo with live electronic (sixth-tone soft-pad synthesizer) distortion.
◼ Blorkra on the Radio
A remix for BBC Radio 3's Late Junction program produced by Katie Callin (@kjcallin).
A surprising result: the originally apocalyptic work takes on a "Holiday" vibe!
Blorkra Video excerpts
Watch excerpts (use thumbnails and/or screen controls) from You Who Will emerge from the Flood…
❶ A glimpse of the Blorkra Tragedy
❷ Blorkra is the last of her kind
❸ Blorkra sees her own violent death
- Costume design: Suzette Matheson
- Video and animations: Paula Cronan
- Video character: Brenna Williams as dying Blorkra
These excerpts show footage from performances at:
- AKSIOMA, Institute for Contemporary Art : Ljubljana (performed in a swimming pool; part of the previous 5 Fathoms Opera Project), Slovenia, 2008.
Read a review of AKSIOMA event: “Art under water” by Jela Krečič.
- Queer up North Festival : Manchester (world premiere, performed in historic Victoria Baths), England, 2009.
Listen to Front Row to the Flood: an interview with Juliana Snapper by Kirsty Lang (BBC 4's Front Row program.)
- TRAMA Festival de Artes Performativas : Porto (performed in a swimming pool: Clube Fluvial Portuense), Portugal, 2009.
- Teatr Dramatyczny Migracje Festiwal : Warsaw (performed in a swimming pool: the Palace of Culture and Science), Poland, 2010.
Read Broadening the Field of Theatre: a review of 2010 Festiwal Theatralny Warsaw Centralna event by Ewelina Godlewska-Byliniak.
- La Bâtie - Festival de Genève : Geneva (performed in a swimming pool), Switzerland, 2011.
- Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music : Bendigo (performed in a dunk tank), Australia, 2017.
Read a review of 2017 BIFEM event: “BIFEM: Juliana Snapper, You Who Will Emerge from the Flood” by Lewis Ingham.
An alien challenge
Migrate from air to water?
Breathing and singing underwater?
Maximizing bone conduction and controlling bubble output as part of a new vocal fabric, Juliana Snapper merges extended techniques with Baroque tropes that represent human longing and passion as aspects of weather.
Juliana Snapper becomes a modern-day siren in two ways:
— she takes on the role of Blorkra, an amphibious hybrid that survived a global ecological catastrophe.
— she utilises radical vocal techniques (see “Bouche à l'eau”) which require more than her voice being transmitted via a hydrophone.
- 5 Fathoms Opera Project
- A Mermaid scholar: an excerpt of Stefan Helmreich’s article “Underwater Music: Tuning Composition to the Sounds of Science” which appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies.
- Singing underwater: Nina Sun Eidsheim’s chapter “Music’s Material Dependency” which appeared in her book: Sensing Sound - Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice.
- “10 weird and wonderful opera props from around the world”: an excerpt of Hannah Nepil's article about the Queer up North Festival performance of You Who Will Emerge from the Flood…, which appeared in Gramophone magazine, March 21, 2011.
- The Victoria Baths singing pool, a post which appeared in The Shrieking Violet (May 14, 2009), an art and culture magazine edited by Manchester-based writer Natalie Bradbury.
- Front Row to the Flood, an interview with Juliana Snapper provided by BBC Radio 4 (Kirsty Lang's Front Row program), on the occasion of the world premiere of You Who Will Emerge from the Flood… which took place at Manchester´s Water Palace, Eng (May 17, 2009.)
- Bouche à l'eau, an installation (single channel video loop with stereo sound) commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland (Mar 25—June 26, 2017.)
- Communities, Chemistries, Choirs… Site-specific operatic staging: an interview with Juliana Snapper about her performance of You Who Will Emerge from the Flood… in Warsaw, Poland (Oct. 2010), provided by Telewizja Dramatyczna Międzynarodowy Festiwal Teatralny Warszawa Centralna.
You Who Will Emerge from the Flood : synopsis
Blorkra is a genetically-engineered amphibious posthuman living 500,000 years in the future. Her species was designed in the twenty-first century as an act of despair — in the knowledge that the earth could no longer support homo sapiens.
Attempts had to be made to diversify human anatomy in order to survive on a ruined earth. Following the extinction of humankind, Blorkra’s species has evolved and developed.
But, she may be the last of her kind. She lives in hunger and isolation between the icy depths and the sterile shore.
A dark shadow hangs over Blorkra. A boat (does she even know what this is?) has been circulating in her territory.
Blorkra is alarmed by the boat, but she is desperate to find food and for contact (with anyone). Excited and confused, she plunges into a sequence of hallucinatory trances. In these visions, she sees/hears:
— a genetic scientist named “T.I.N.A.” (“there is no alternative”) from the twenty-first century, creator of Blorkra’s species;
— A swamp dweller named “Snatch”, living in 75,000 A.D.
Can these ancestors teach her anything useful? They express only a series of vague warnings and muddled apologies in languages Blorkra doesn’t understand. Hopeful, she moves towards the shore in her gelatinous bubble; towards the shadowy figures with the boat. In her final hallucination, Blorkra sees her own violent death.
