Czernowin, Chaya

Pnima...ins Innere [DVD]

Label: Mode Records Country: USA

"PNIMA...INS INNERE is more than a opera or music theater piece about the holocaust. It is a piece that deals with the way we react to a traumatic experience. PNIMA is an attempt to create a different kind of music theater. No traditional libretto, no plot, only mental situations. No singers who are actors, it is a non-verbal non-narrative experience. On the stage are two actors who do not sing or speak, on the sides of the stage are the vocal and instrumental soloists. It is based on a novel by an Israeli author David Grossmann, See Under: Love. The book deals with the holocaust from the point of view of the second generation to the holocaust: the children of the survivors, who cannot touch this horrible experience but are forced to encounter its constant but hidden presence. The opera is a journey into the psychology of a boy encountering his grandfather who survived the holocaust, but is crazy, eccentric, and is withdrawn in the traumatic experience, unable to talk or to live anything else. The opera is composed of an opening and three scenes. It incorporates dramatic lighting and staging along with video, making it a perfect work for the DVD medium. Pnima was commissioned for the Munich Biennale 2000. The opera was selected as "The best premiere of the year", by Opernwelt, and won the "Bayerischer Theatre Prize" in 2000. It received more than 70 rave reviews from all over Europe."-Mode Recordings