Opera Heartbeat
Director: Inese Stade (LV)
Script: Inese Stade & Gints Apsits (LV)
Cast: Kristine Opolais (LV)
Original Music: Nicolo Loro Ravenni (IT), Tuomo Olli Tapani Uusitalo (FI), Una Stade (LV)
Sound design: Jevgeny Kobzev (LV)
Photography: Aleksandrs Grebnevs (LV)
Visual artists: Endre Tveitan (NO), Gints Apsits (LV)
Producer: Marika Priedite (LV)
Synopsis
The Opera Heartbeats examines opera as classical art from an alternative perspective. In the documentary you will find the interaction of the vivid personality of the young and talented opera artist Kristine Opolais with a dynamic editing style and electronic music. Using dynamic editing mixed with electronic music, the film aims to contradict the traditional atmosphere of opera.
The short Opera Heartbeats consists of five episodes reflecting an evolution of the artist’s emotions that are all bonded with events in her professional and personal life:
Excitement – Longing – Disappointment – Evolution – Relief.
The Opera Heartbeats alternative documentary film project took a year in the making in 2010 by a crew of interdisciplinary, international filmmakers, musicians and artists.
Video–art
Particular attention in the Opera Heartbeats short was dedicated to video art and visual effects as a tool to illustrate the wide range of the opera singer’s emotions.
Norwegian artist Endre Tveitan experimented with deconstructing and reconstructing the footage – he shows several video images simultaneously composed into one ever-changing video composition.
Gints Apsits experimented with colour and ink saturating the whole image. Filming an ink drop in motion that bleeds in water Gints produced an ink bleed effect.
The outcome is outstanding video-art that supports the storyline, highlighting emotions on stage and behind the curtains.
Kristine Opolais
Kristine Opolais is a Latvian opera singer who started as a soloist of the Latvian National Opera in 2003. Her talent was soon noticed internationally and now she is performing all over Europe and is heading towards the biggest stages of opera
Besides, she is a beautiful woman, a marvelous actress with a charismatic personality that mixes strength with fragility.
During the 2010/2011 season Kristine Opolais made her Munich debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in the title role in Rusalka which is considered to be an essential turn in her singing career. She also returns to La Scala (Milan) twice – as Nedda in a new production of Pagliacci, and as the Marquise de Merteuil in the world premiere of Luca Francesconi’s opera Quartett. In the summer of 2010 Kristine appeared at the world renowned Aix-en–Provence Festival as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, under the baton of Louis Langrée.
Meanwhile Kristine Opolais is also performing at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, at the Vienna State Opera in La Bohème, at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, and as Tatyana at the Latvian National Opera.
