Eva Reiter et Michiel Vandevelde

The Rise is an experimental opera by Austrian composer Eva Reiter and Belgian choreographer Michiel Vandevelde, inspired by the poetry of Louise Glück, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature. Her collection of poetry, titled Averno, named after a volcanic crater lake in Italy thought to be a door to the underworld, served as the primary material for the libretto. Glück conjures up images of life and death, interweaving the profane world with the idea of eternity – the surface of the lake acting as a permeable membrane, linking parallel worlds. 

The master of ceremonies is Ruben Grandits, a deaf actor and translation magician who shifts meaning between language, sign and sound. He guides the ten performers (soprano Lore Binon, the Ictus ensemble and the dancers from the company Disagree) towards the mouth of the volcano. New instruments created specifically for this piece, new harmonies, grammar, rhetoric and even politics are reinvented before our very eyes.