Romitelli: An Index of Metals

Fausto Romitelli: An Index of Metals - video opera for soprano, ensemble, multi-media projection & electronics (London premiere)

This 21st-century masterpiece was written in 2003 by Italian composer Fausto Romitelli – in the final months before he died of cancer aged 41.

A video opera that goes beyond simply putting images with music,An Index of Metals was created out of Romitelli's desire for 'a completely new concept in which sound and light become part of a single through process. The story is that of a fusion of perception.'

Performed in London for the first time, with the original video art by Paolo Pachini and Leonardo Romoli, it promises 'a violent, abstract narrative denuded of all operatic artifice, providing an initiation rite of immersion and a trance of light and sound.'

'This is a multimedia opera with lots of projections, three screens and an orchestra that's amplified and processed, in many of the ways you would normally transform a rock guitar – through distortion, chorusing effects etc. But it's all done live, in the moment, and then spun around the room in surround sound.' Ian Dearden, London Sinfonietta Principal Player (electronics)

'An experience of total perception, plunging the spectator into a magma of flowing sounds, shapes and colours... rather like the light shows of the 1960s or today's rave parties in which space appears to twist into a thousand anamorphoses.' Fausto Romitelli