Synopsis

Directed by the young Dutch director Rennik-Jan Neggers and conducted by Sam Weller (graduate of the National Masters in Orchestral Conducting), Transformations is a chamber opera in two acts by the American composer Conrad Susa with a libretto of ten poems by Anne Sexton from her 1971 book Transformations, a collection of confessional poetry based on stories by the Brothers Grimm. Commissioned by Minnesota Opera, the work, which is described by its composer as “An Entertainment in 2 Acts”, had its world premiere on 5 May 1973 at the Cedar Village Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It went on to become one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer

Rennik-Jan Neggers writes:
Transformations promises an evening with “small comic masterpieces: grotesque, erotic, sly, and playful”. Poet Anne Sexton, self-proclaimed ‘mother of the insane’, transformed Grimm fairy tales into her own poetic language. Sexton’s sharp and dark sense of humour places these fairy tales in the light of her mental state and her social context, without losing the sinister rawness of the Grimm tales. Conrad Susa set Transformations to music, giving the fairy tales a new theatricality. This production places the piece in an intimate and dynamic chamber setting, where the audience can come closer, both physically and intellectually. The spectators will be taken from one fairy tale to another, where metaphors and similes let phantasies and associations roam free.

In the plot, Anne Sexton appears as the Tale-Teller of Transformations. She is the mother of the insane, and she wants to tell them a few stories. She wants to share some odd tales from Brothers Grimm that she transformed herself: The Golden Key, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The White Snake, Iron Hans, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, Godfather Death, The Wonderful Musician, Hansel and Gretel, and Briar Rose. Before she can tell the tales, she wants to present a clinical case introducing each one of them. In short prologues she describes cases with their symptoms, which transform and modernise the fairy tales that follow.

The prologues and the fairy tales become more and more intertwined, up to the point where it is impossible to consider them separately. Does Anne live in a fantasy? Or are the fantasies her reality?

Production supported by the Cultuurfonds