Love in times of disaster: “INES” at Cologne Opera

16 June will see the premiere of “INES” by director Katharina Schmitt and composer Ondřej Adámek at Cologne Opera. It’s the tale of a young man, a woman dying of an unexplained illness, characters possessed by strange voices – a love story and the world after a nuclear disaster. We met the librettist/director in the run-up to opening night to talk about the renewed relevance of the Orpheus legend and the sound of shadows.

Can you give us a brief explanation of what “INES” is about and how you came up with the name?

“INES” is an opera I developed in collaboration with the composer Ondřej Adámek. It’s an adaptation of the myth of Orpheus & Eurydice, set in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster. The Eurydice character is killed in the disaster while the Orpheus character survives. One of them is in the kingdom of the dead, the other is among the living and they keep missing each other. The story is about their attempt to communicate with each other – an attempt that fails repeatedly.

The inspiration for the libretto – and a recurrent theme throughout it – was the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale: INES.

Why did you think now was a good time for a piece about love in the midst of a nuclear disaster?

One reason was that Ondřej and I are interested in the link between voice and trauma. I’m a classically trained actor, working as a dramatist and director. When I write for spoken word theatre, the process is different to when I’m writing for opera. In the latter, you do wonder why the characters are singing instead of speaking. One possible answer is the relationship between trauma and voice, the fact that something sings from the body. That’s the area that interests Ondřej and me.

Why are the characters singing instead of speaking? One possible answer is the relationship between trauma and voice.

Katharina Schmitt, director and librettist

When we started working on this piece, we thought about the first trauma that we could remember affecting the whole of society and it was Chernobyl. But we also knew we wanted to use Orpheus and Eurydice. I did some research and tried to find out whether there were any links between nuclear incidents, disasters and weapons and the Orpheus theme. During my research, I came across Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which has a series of photographs showing how people were burnt into the ground, like shadows. And Ovid, one of the first sources to mention the myth of Orpheus, described Eurydice as a shadow. We wondered what a shadow sounds like and how a shadow might manifest itself on stage.

But it’s also relevant because we’re increasingly faced with situations that render the protagonist principle and the concept of the individual obsolete. The disasters confronting us can’t be grasped or overcome by individuals. I think that’s what makes our piece relevant.

But it’s also relevant because we’re increasingly faced with situations that render the protagonist principle and the concept of the individual obsolete

Katharina Schmitt, director and librettist

INES returns to the Orpheus myth. Orpheus loses Eurydice to the realm of shadows, saves her and loses her again on the way back because he turns to look at her although he’s been forbidden from doing so. Does his failure stem from his yearning for her because he was without her for so long or from his human, all too human inadequacies?

I’d say they’re two sides of the same coin. Orpheus’s yearning, his inability to accept death, is the human failure. In our adaptation, this scene is in a hospital, or rather, in an isolation tent. That’s where the protagonist O finds out that his wife, E, has radiation sickness and is going to die. She doesn’t have much time left and they tell him to leave her alone. He then tries to drag her away and unplugs all the medical devices. It is this action that actually kills her.

At a juncture between absolute silence and deafening noise, nuclear winter and heat, blazing light and complete darkness, the characters in INES sing of human boundaries and the difficulties of overcoming them. How do you present something like that on stage in such a way that the aesthetic effect blows the audience’s mind?

The piece is made up of various layers: the libretto, the composition and the staging. In the libretto, the main characters change due to the disaster. Eurydice falls to pieces. She goes from being one single character to a collection of voices. A vocal doppelgänger ensemble appears – she moves from a solo voice to an echo that reverberates around the room, lending her an abstract form, which is our attempt at creating the sound of a shadow.

As for the Orpheus character, his voice is changed by the disaster. In Hagen Matzeit, we’ve cast a singer who can move between baritone and countertenor. So he can sing very low and very high. As a result of the disaster, Orpheus finds a different voice.

The second act sees the explosion, represented by the entire orchestra coming onto the stage gradually and the space filling.

Visually, we work a lot with the INES scale and the increasing level of radiation. Each space is immersed in a different light for the warning level; the way the storyline proceeds corresponds to the toxicity in the environment.

How does the music change? How does Ondřej Adámek’s score depict the increasing level of radiation?

Instead of having a chronological libretto, our staging, libretto and music move through the landscape of Orpheus’s soul, him having survived the disaster and being left traumatised by it. We’re all familiar with the flashbacks trauma patients often have. So there isn’t a sort of soundtrack that becomes increasingly dramatic over time, it’s more of a musical landscape through which the protagonist moves and experiences a range of extremes.

The most extreme moment in terms of mind-blowingness is definitely the explosion. There’s also a choir that comments on the tragedy being experienced by the characters and provides context for the audience. A main focus is on the length and tragedy of the life of one human being, which is very short, versus the infinite duration of the half-life of the contaminated material.

The human voices in INES change as a result of the nuclear accident. They are lost and break through the barriers of time… What remains of the emotional attachment when everything falls apart?

Since we’re in the landscape of Orpheus’s soul, we witness both the tragedy and the beautiful moments he remembers with Eurydice. That’s one of the reasons why he doesn’t want to leave that landscape. It’s the only place where he can still see his beloved. That creates some moments of great beauty too.

 So what did the process involve? You’ve been given the opportunity to work with a large ensemble and a large orchestra. That’s quite unusual for a commissioned piece, isn’t it?

Absolutely. Cologne Opera, particularly its director, Hein Mulders, and the General Music Director of the City of Cologne, François-Xavier Roth, have demonstrated considerable faith by giving Ondřej and me the opportunity to work with this set-up. We’re able to use all of the opera’s resources. We’re delighted by this interest in contemporary approaches in opera. It’s really quite remarkable.

INES will be premiered in hall 3 of Cologne Opera’s Staatenhaus venue on 16 June 2024. Tickets are already on sale and cost between 35 and 50 euros. Performances will also take place on 22/26/28 June and 3 July (last performance). Tickets and further information are available here.