The Parallel

A Choral Performance

“ The Parallel” ( in Armenian - “Zugaher” [,zu : ga` he :r ]) is a choral performance (music by Anna Azizyan, stage director Artur Manukyan, conductor Sona Hovhannisyan) commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of Armenia for Hover State Chamber Choir. The premiere took place at the Yerevan Goy Experimental Theatre on May 24, 2009.

The mission of the project was to extend the borders of choral music genre and go beyond reaching expressiveness of a theatrical performance. Hover Chamber Choir had implemented similar projects before - to name ‘ Six Fables ' choral performance by Vardan Aygektsi ( music by Stepan Babatorosyan ), two cycles of dance-songs by Komitas, and a small Christmas performance as a shadow theatre.

“The Parallel” ( draft name the “Journey”, in Armenian - “Chanaparortutyun”) performance does not have a traditional plot. The content of the performance is an assemble of the texts from various sources - “L'Oiseau Bleu” (the Blue Bird) by Maurice Maeterlinck, “ Through the Looking-Glass” by Lewis Carroll, “Odyssey” by Homer, “‘The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and “Gulliver's Travels” by Jonathan Swift. The excerpts from these wonderful literary works lead us to the imaginative worlds full of choral polyphonic music, accompanied by a harp, vibraphone and a triangle. The performance is aimed to restore the vitality of eternal values. In this performance we handle with a new quality of artistic expression, which is a singing group. This approach is rooted to the origins of the theatrical art. Modern music and the choir join together through the exclusive theatrical means of expression where every artist participates - everyone may have the role of the imagery, both the author and the listener. The performance is built up on combined artistic and musical skills of the musicians. The stage design made of metallic wires outlines every abstract subject.

You won't see any heavy decorations there and this helps to concentrate around the subject of a performance. The hand-crafted props leave odd and pretty irrational impression. There is a sun made of the metallic wires hanging i n the centre of the stage. There is a ship attached to the sun with a chain and all the characters have a journey by this ship . During the story about Gulliver the notorious yahoos break down the s hip. The Song of Times and the course of the years repair it and on Odyssey's return trip it takes us home. In the final episode the Little Prince navigates the s hip towards the spectators in order to invite them to the s hip – make them also the crew members. The strophes of “Jabberwocky” poem appearing in the performance create one of the most important episodes there - from time to time they take us back to attractive and witty moments in the past and make us shiver listening to incredible portmanteau and nonsense words.

The multilayer structure of this theatrical performance is consonant to the substance of polyphonic singing, which makes this feat unique and beyond any genre.

The musical composition includes also the monody sections, primitive at a glance, but in reality they are not so naïve as they seem. Besides, the complicated clusters in polyphony are not that intricate as they could seem.

An odyssey in an archaic monody style, the baroque concept of a Little Prince, the eccentric Alice, the choral Gulliver and the atonalistic Blue Bird – they all become the impulsive musical supplement for our voyage – a parallel to our times, our reality and ourselves.

Plot