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New Opera with Sounds of Planet Earth New York. On 29 March 2019 the Experimental Intermedia Foundation of New York, directed by the American composer and artist Phill Niblock, will present the world premiere of the opera Metamorphosis, created by the composer Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, with libretto by the legendary Swiss philosopher René Berger (April 29, 1915 - January 29, 2009). Emanuel Pimenta and René Berger met in 1987 in Lisbon, Portugal, during an international meeting of art and technology. They became immediately friends and started working together on various projects. Pimenta was one of the coordinators of the first video art and electronic art festivals of the world, created by Berger and Rinaldo Bianda in 1980, at the Swiss city of Locarno, which counted with the participation of important figures such as Nan June Paik, Francis Ford Coppola, Edgar Morin, Bill Viola, Pierre Restany and Daniel Charles among many others. In 2008, Pimenta invited Berger to develop together a radically different opera. Berger was responsible for the libretto. The opera received the title of Metamorphosis and is the last work of the Swiss philosopher, elaborated in part at the hospital shortly before his death in January 2009. With hundreds of concerts held in several of the most emblematic theaters and cultural institutions around the world, with more than seventy published books and more than fifty compact discs, Emanuel Pimenta worked with John Cage during his last seven years of his life as a composer for Merce Cunningham, with whom he would continue collaborating for over twenty-five years. Between April 2016 and April 2017, the centenary of Berger was celebrated. During this year of celebrations, Emanuel Pimenta launched a book about the philosopher, his great friend, titled René Berger: Knight of the Invisible, with more than 800 pages, distributed internationally. He also launched an experimental film in honor of Berger, in addition to various events in different countries. Now, at the Experimental Intermedia Foundation of New York, the world premiere of the opera Metamorphosis will close the celebrations of Berger's centennial. Metamorphosis is an opera for inner voices through the reading of philosophical texts written by René Berger about the planetary transformation and also the mutation experienced by people in a world living a civilizational transition. The music is made with emissions of seventy-seven radio stations worldwide, in over forty countries, and also with Earth's sounds captured from outer space. More information on: 2016 March 29 - 9 pm more information about Emanuel Pimenta: http://www.emanuelpimenta.net/ |