MEDIATHEK

The Death By Fire Of Giordano Bruno is an electronic chamber opera composed by Irish composer Roger Doyle, with a libretto by Jocelyn Clarke and directed by Eric Fraad. The music has been composed as a continuous pre-recorded electronic soundtrack, played through the sound system, together with 4 live musicians (piano, 'cello, woodwinds, electric guitar). The 5 singers all have radio microphones balancing their voices with the sountrack and acoustic instruments. They are: Boy soprano, mezzo soprano, counter tenor, high tenor and tenor (Bruno). As the music was composed on computer software it was not always possible to convey the sounds used by notation alone. Thus the 4 examples of the score supplied give only an idea of its skeletal nature. The relation of score to the video is: the opening music is obviously at the beginning. The Throne Room Of King Henry III starts at 1:42; and the opening of The Cell is at 14:30. This 23 minute scene represents Bruno's hallucinations the night before he was burned at the stake in 1600. Here he meets various Deities, James Joyce and his young self, among others. The Trial scene at the 9 minute mark was developed in rehearsal. The boy soprano solo is at 25:40 and represents Bruno meeting himslef as a young boy. The full cast list is in the Programme Book supplied. Further details are in the Synopsis. This video is from a 38 minute performance that was made in October 2013 at the Dublin Theatre Festival - presented in their 'in development' programme, and represents a single act from the opera. As mentioned elsewhere, we have just learned that we have received funding from the Irish Arts Council to complete this opera in a 90 minute version for full production in Dublin in November 2016.