Urbi et Orbi performed by the HoppArt Society is a minimalist Chamber Opera for Singing actors, Talking actors and Hupas. Written by Márton Kovács and János Pilinszky. Recorded live at Jurányi Incubator Haus.

“We are using János Pilinszky’s text as a libretto, yet we are not creating an opera in the classical sense, since there are no arias and recitatives alternating and yet all the time: music. Music and singing, text, letters, sounds and overtones.”

Two popes, one black and one white. One is the agonizing, dying Pope, the other the one to come. One on a black throne, the other on a white throne. The colour: the Vatican window overlooking St Peter’s Square. The crowd waits in the square. They await the death of their Pope. They await the blessing. “Urbi et orbi” for the suffering of the flesh, “Urbi et orbi” for the city and the world, for the whole world. What they “get” is something quite different. A miracle? A surprise? An unexpected turn of events? Is it God’s revelation? Something.

No “guest text”. Merely the raw material as raw material.

Pilinszky “talks” about it with Sheryl Sutton:
“One of the most disturbing experiences of my adolescence was that great novels are boring. Later, before I had discovered Bach with my stick-ears, I realised that great works were not pre-boring, but beyond boring. What mostly bothers me about modern literature today is that it does not dare to take the risk of boredom (…) Almost without exception, the works are beyond boredom, too ‘naked’, too ‘daring’ or simply too ‘loud’ and ‘surprising’ to enter the zone where Tolstoy, Racine, Dostoyevsky and, above all, Bach so naturally lingered. And then they took a step that, with monotonous rain, a living heart and so many other things, the sea is perhaps the most exemplary of all. There is no freedom, and no true greatness, without communication beyond boredom.”

HoppArt Society