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  • Choral, Vocal, or Opera
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Opera Philadelphia's Opera on Film Series: Sibyl + Polia & Blastema

  • Choral, Vocal, or Opera
  • Series or Festival

Opera Philadelphia's Opera on Film Series: Sibyl + Polia & Blastema

Sybil is a 10-minute film conceived in 2020 as a companion piece to Work in Progress, the only stage work conceived by the U.S. sculptor Alexander Calder for Teatro dell'Opera in Rome in 1968. In the film, the contemporary Sibyl is portrayed as an African dancer, who dances against book pages to jazz music composed by Kyle Shepherd and vocal compositions by Nhlanhla Mahlangu.

Polia & Blastema (2022) is the first foray into opera for American film director E. Elias Merhige (Shadow of the Vampire). This sci-fi opera film is a gnostic creation myth told through a visual tapestry which journeys into immensely desolate hellscapes of the inorganic as organic folding back onto itself in ever spiraling, fractally superimposing cataclysms of wormhole network (be)longing. Aesthetically tempered by aspects of decay, rot, earth, and the meta-myth structure of human cognition, the multi-leveled world of Polia & Blastema is informed by the visual imagination of David Wexler, a celebrated visual artist who has been the mastermind behind the live performances of Flying Lotus, The Weeknd, and The Glitch Mob, among many other artists. Starring Nina McNeely and Jasmine Albuquerque and featuring vocalists Micaela Tobin and Sharon Chohi Kim, Polia & Blastema is a unique cinematic journey into the cosmic.

Philadelphia Film Center
06:00 PM - 11:59 PM on Fri, 30 Sep 2022

Event Supported By

Opera Philadelphia
(215) 732-8400
tix@operaphila.org
Philadelphia Film Center
1412 Chestnut St
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102