The City Weeps

IMG_2045Two miniature operas for solo soprano and electronics 

The Baghdad Monologue – Alejandro Viñao

Lonely Sits The City – Andrew Lovett

featuring Frances M Lynch

The City Weeps encapsulates the harsh reality of conflict.It highlights not only the ability of humanity both to survive invasion and devastation but also to perennially inflict the same wounds across generations and peoples.

Baghdad Monologue guns

The Baghdad Monologue (2007): Alejandro Viñao

Commissioned by A.Devantgarde Festival. Final version premiered by electric voice theatre @ Festival38e Rugissants, Grenoble

The text ‘explores a political situation that is as old as civilization and has repeated itself throughout the ages: the forceful intervention of the strong and powerful to ‘protect’ or ‘liberate’ the weak, focussing on the intervention ‘primarily from the point of view of those who endure it rather than from a philosophical perspective.’ (Viñao)

Lonely Sits the City Sand Picture

Lonely Sits The City (2009): Andrew Lovett

Commissioned by electric voice theatre with support from ACE, Britten-Pears Foundation and the European Association for Jewish Culture. Developed at The Junction Theatre, Cambridge.

This piece represents a culmination of work Lovett and Lynch have produced together over seven years, resulting in complex and intoxicating soundscapes that fuse electronic and acoustic voices, stretching Frances’ vocal technique to its utmost limits. The text comprises excerpts from The Book of Lamentations, ‘a sequence of five poems from the Hebrew Bible, reflecting an ancient tradition of mourning poems after the destruction of a city.’ (Lovett)

electric voice theatre Production Team

Artistic Director and Performer: Frances M Lynch
featuring the voice of David Sheppard as The Prophet

Sound Designer: Alan Burgess
Lighting Designer: Charlotte McClelland
Stage Manager: Kate Frost

Stage and Costume Designers: Miranda Melville and Elizabeth Dawson

The City WeepsThe City Weeps Image

Frances M Lynch and electric voice theatre have been collaborating with composers Alejandro Viñao and Andrew Lovett for many years. The City Weeps represents new developments for all of us in vocal techniques, drama and live electronics.
Viñao produced a spoken drama, contrasting with live singing, transforming seamlessly into recorded sounds: – a marketplace, a call to prayer, TV news broadcasts, and a variety of unexpected musical styles.
Lovett pushes Lynch’s extended voice, and places it in a surround sound electronic space, peopled with unseen characters with whom she interacts. You’ll hear the voices of the sentinels appear at four corners of the devastated city in which the audience are sitting.

 The City Weeps is available for touring  – please Contact electric voice theatre for details.