Michel van der Aa’s
Blank Out
(West Coast Premiere)
Blank Out
Friday and Saturday, April 28–29, 2023, 8pm
Zellerbach Hall
Tonight’s program will be performed without intermission and last approximately 70 minutes.
Blank Out received its world premiere on March 20, 2016 at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Blank Out was commissioned by Nationale Opera, Lucerne Festival, and Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, with financial support of Nederlands Kamerkoor, Ammodo, Fonds Podiumkunsten, and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.
The April 28th performance of Blank Out is made possible, in part, by an Anonymous patron sponsor.
From the Executive and Artistic Director
As we move into the final weeks of the season, Cal Performances’ programming shows no signs of slowing down; indeed, April is traditionally one of our busiest months, and this year is certainly no exception.
During a period that begins with this season’s visit by the Bay Area’s legendary Kronos Quartet, and concludes with the highly anticipated West Coast premiere of Michel van der Aa’s chamber opera Blank Out starring Swedish soprano Miah Persson—who just made an impressive appearance with The English Concert in Handel’s Solomon at Zellerbach Hall—Bay Area audiences can look to Cal Performances for an ambitious lineup of live performances that few programs in the world can rival.
Also in store this month—and continuing a tradition that dates to the late 1960s—the beloved Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a crown jewel among American companies, returns to campus for its annual residency. Three programs this year feature captivating dance from Artistic Director Robert Battle, Jamar Roberts, and Kyle Abraham; eye-opening new company productions of works from dance masters Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor; the Bay Area premiere of a new production of Survivors, first created by Alvin Ailey in 1986 as a tribute to Nelson and Winnie Mandela; and a selection of Ailey classics, including the beloved Revelations. Each work on these programs reflects the timeless Ailey legacy of telling powerful and life-affirming stories through stunning dance.
Also part of our April schedule: the gifted harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani in his Cal Performances in-person debut; the Danish String Quartet in the third installment of its brilliant Doppelgänger Project, which pairs world premieres from a cohort of some of today’s most accomplished composers with major late-period chamber works by Schubert; new-music champion Sō Percussion in a concert featuring Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw as guest vocalist in the West Coast premiere of a luminous new set of songs Shaw co-composed with the members of the quartet; Latin jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera in an unmissable Bay Area appearance; George Hinchliffe’s devilishly irreverent and eclectic Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in its Cal Performances debut; and masters of sacred Renaissance choral music The Tallis Scholars in a return engagement at Berkeley’s intimate First Congregational Church.
As the season draws to a close, Cal Performances’ Illuminations: “Human and Machine” programming will continue to take advantage of our unique positioning as a vital part of the world’s top-ranked public university. As we’ve done all season long, we’ll be engaging communities on and off campus to examine the evolution of tools such as musical instruments and electronics, the complex relationships between the creators and users of technology, the possibilities enabled by technology’s impact on the performing arts, and questions raised by the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in our society. A highlight of these activities has been our Human & Machine Song Contest, in which entrants submit original and previously unpublished songs or compositions integrating any technology (including AI) as a significant part of the creative process; the contest’s winners will be announced on April 22.
Given such a busy schedule, my boundless thanks and appreciation goes out to our tireless and dedicated staff, many of whom are currently (and equally) focused on not just this season, but also on the next. We are now deeply involved with putting the final touches on our plans to announce Cal Performances’ amazing 2023–24 season on April 18, and we can’t wait to share the details with you. Rest assured, we have an extraordinary season planned for you!
Thank you for joining us at Cal Performances. I look forward to seeing you in our halls throughout April and beyond.
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
As we move into the final weeks of the season, Cal Performances’ programming shows no signs of slowing down; indeed, April is traditionally one of our busiest months, and this year is certainly no exception.
During a period that begins with this season’s visit by the Bay Area’s legendary Kronos Quartet, and concludes with the highly anticipated West Coast premiere of Michel van der Aa’s chamber opera Blank Out starring Swedish soprano Miah Persson—who just made an impressive appearance with The English Concert in Handel’s Solomon at Zellerbach Hall—Bay Area audiences can look to Cal Performances for an ambitious lineup of live performances that few programs in the world can rival.
Also in store this month—and continuing a tradition that dates to the late 1960s—the beloved Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, a crown jewel among American companies, returns to campus for its annual residency. Three programs this year feature captivating dance from Artistic Director Robert Battle, Jamar Roberts, and Kyle Abraham; eye-opening new company productions of works from dance masters Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor; the Bay Area premiere of a new production of Survivors, first created by Alvin Ailey in 1986 as a tribute to Nelson and Winnie Mandela; and a selection of Ailey classics, including the beloved Revelations. Each work on these programs reflects the timeless Ailey legacy of telling powerful and life-affirming stories through stunning dance.
Also part of our April schedule: the gifted harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani in his Cal Performances in-person debut; the Danish String Quartet in the third installment of its brilliant Doppelgänger Project, which pairs world premieres from a cohort of some of today’s most accomplished composers with major late-period chamber works by Schubert; new-music champion Sō Percussion in a concert featuring Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw as guest vocalist in the West Coast premiere of a luminous new set of songs Shaw co-composed with the members of the quartet; Latin jazz legend Paquito D’Rivera in an unmissable Bay Area appearance; George Hinchliffe’s devilishly irreverent and eclectic Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in its Cal Performances debut; and masters of sacred Renaissance choral music The Tallis Scholars in a return engagement at Berkeley’s intimate First Congregational Church.
As the season draws to a close, Cal Performances’ Illuminations: “Human and Machine” programming will continue to take advantage of our unique positioning as a vital part of the world’s top-ranked public university. As we’ve done all season long, we’ll be engaging communities on and off campus to examine the evolution of tools such as musical instruments and electronics, the complex relationships between the creators and users of technology, the possibilities enabled by technology’s impact on the performing arts, and questions raised by the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in our society. A highlight of these activities has been our Human & Machine Song Contest, in which entrants submit original and previously unpublished songs or compositions integrating any technology (including AI) as a significant part of the creative process; the contest’s winners will be announced on April 22.
Given such a busy schedule, my boundless thanks and appreciation goes out to our tireless and dedicated staff, many of whom are currently (and equally) focused on not just this season, but also on the next. We are now deeply involved with putting the final touches on our plans to announce Cal Performances’ amazing 2023–24 season on April 18, and we can’t wait to share the details with you. Rest assured, we have an extraordinary season planned for you!
Thank you for joining us at Cal Performances. I look forward to seeing you in our halls throughout April and beyond.
Jeremy Geffen
Executive and Artistic Director, Cal Performances
About the Performance
Using the intersecting and reflecting planes of live action and video to explore the human condition, Blank Out centers on a dialogue between a man and his mother. The libretto is based upon the work and life of South African poet Ingrid Jonker. A deeply human story, Blank Out uses innovative techniques of interactive 3D film and electronic music to consider memory and the way in which people reconstruct and deal with traumatic life events.
The set of Blank Out is constructed in miniature, like an architect’s model. A 3D film acts as a backdrop and is projected live via a camera that the singer moves around the model. As the woman moves the camera, she not only changes her visual surroundings but also appears to be “playing” her environment.
The impression is given to the audience of being both within and outside of an abstract country house. Musically, the text begins disjointed, but as words loop and accumulate, the story of some unnamed trauma begins to emerge. As reality and the world of the model begin to blur, a man appears on screen. We discover that the woman’s words are connected to his; he is her son, and she drowned when he was a child. He is left to reconstruct the painful memories of his past.
Blank Out is a coproduction of the Dutch National Opera with the Lucerne Festival, and Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.
Synopsis
A woman, alone onstage, is lost. She sings fragmented texts, recording herself with a video camera. Her sentences gradually become complete and coherent. We learn of a devastating trauma that took place in 1976, when her son was seven years old. From the edge of the dike near their house she watched him swim, then drown. She was paralyzed, unable to act.
The woman shares memories of her son while slowly building a small model house. She reconstructs and explains her relationship with her son, exploring her emotional displacement from him. As the line between reality and the world of the model begins to blur, a man appears on screen.
The man sings a duet with the woman’s recording from earlier in the opera, filling out her story of that day in 1976. He also experienced a trauma: the woman on stage is his mother, who died that day—she drowned saving his life.
In taking us back to the accident, the man adds a new perspective to the events. We realize the woman on stage is a reconstruction of his memory. They sing together, dance together. As the piece builds to a climax, the woman drowns in her own words while the man desperately clings to his treasured memories.
The woman disappears from stage. The man mourns her.
Blank Out’s text and characters include elements by the South African poet Ingrid Jonker. The story, however, is not biographical.