The Voice Today...
What is a voice? A person who sings, an instrument that speaks, different voices coming together to form a single sound… A voice can take many forms. Inspired by the theme Giving Voice, each day in this morning newsletter we highlight a different way of using the voice. Today, the voice that refuses to be confined to a single box.
Those who took to the stage in the Baroque era did not always conform to the boundaries we take for granted today. Men sang female roles and appeared in dresses, women portrayed male heroes, and castrati could embody both male and female characters. The voice made it possible to take on another identity – and audiences accepted this as part of the world of theatre.
This makes Baroque theatre surprisingly relevant today. What happens when a voice, a body or a character does not quite fit the expectations we attach to it? Over the Rainbow deliberately explores that space. The production takes a queer perspective on Baroque music, while also asking how much freedom there really is in the way we experience a classical concert.
Because the concert itself has a history, too. The way we listen to classical music today – sitting still, listening, watching, applauding at the appropriate moment – is not timeless, but took its present-day form largely in the nineteenth century. Over the Rainbow shows that things can be different. Baroque music played on historical instruments is combined with costumes, dance, acrobatics and contemporary voices. Around 250 members of the inclusive The Space Choir take to the stage together. Their voices form not only a large musical ensemble, but also an image of what can emerge when many different people literally and figuratively make their voices heard together.
And the production goes beyond the voice alone. The music becomes part of a moving whole, with choreography by the renowned Antwerp-based artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Bodies, voices and music come together and influence one another. In doing so, the traditional divide between listening and watching, between concert and theatre, is also broken down.
Perhaps the voice is the perfect instrument for this. A voice has no fixed appearance. It can sound masculine or feminine, high or low, powerful or vulnerable – and sometimes escape all of these categories at once. In the Baroque era, the voice already had the power to blur the boundaries between characters and identities. Centuries later, we can listen to that freedom once again.
The rainbow in the title has become a worldwide symbol of diversity, pride and equality. But above all, it represents the hope of a place where everyone can feel at home. Over the Rainbow invites us not only to look for that place in some distant future or somewhere over the rainbow, but also right here: in the concert hall, where hundreds of voices, different bodies and diverse forms of expression come together and take up space.
