MARY FINSTERER 

Composer  

TOM WRIGHT 

Librettist 

At the frontiers of the imagination is a land of nothingness

 A metaphysical place whereto go is to find emptiness 

A land without a land 

A mirror-land

ANTARCTICA is a contemporary opera dealing with historic, mythic and scientific beliefs and narratives revolving about the southern continent. In a time when anthropogenic climate change is destabilising all centres (political, cultural, scientific), Antarctica becomes a stage for a drama of the future. There are vested interests, beliefs, systems of thought all at odds to decide what to do about what is actually happening on this distant stage, a stage without human performers, a stage without sets, a stage without texts, a stage of wind and ice, of glaring reflectivity and competing song.  In an era of profound climate variability, ecological pressures, the movement of populations across continents, and heightened awareness of the fragility of our oceans, it is a fable for the twenty-first century.  

HIDDEN MYSTERIES

Antarctica is a library, a recording, a storage system, a palimpsest. For most of the planet’s history and data, stories have been accruing in the most ephemeral layer, the sastrugi of the surface; in the ice sheet, and in the rocks below, being preserved as each new layer is placed above – a palimpsest of narratives waiting to be excavated. While other continents have stratified deposits laid bare, Antarctica is different. Stratified deposits are hidden, lying metaphorically and magnetically at the bottom of the world.  It is a brooding place, not designed for humans. Too cold, too dark, without nourishment. It is not a heaven, nor a hell. More, it is a non–place; silently, noisily, quickly, eternally, holding the history of the world.

INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN DISCIPLINES

Integral to the process of building the opera has been a development phase, where music, dramaturgy, visual arts, digital media, humanities, cultural studies and a multiplicity of fields within science have been explored. In July 2019, composer and University of Tasmania CALE Creative Fellow, Professor Mary Finsterer, directed Opera Antarctica Symposium: FIRST LIGHT. This two-day forum, to explore the intersections between disciplines, was co-ordinated in association with Associate Professor Guy Williams and a team of scientists at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania (IMAS).  It included interviews, workshops, discussions and presentations by twenty specialists from the University of Tasmania and further afield in the creative industries.

The research, including graphical representation, raw data, audio and visual material and other relevant documentation, has provided a rich resource and foundation to map out innovative ways of reimagining these fields in relation to the continent of Antarctica. Read on...