Ondine's Voices Opera World Premiere

Ondine's Voices has its world premiere at St James Garlickhythe on Friday 27 November, a contemporary opera that does things a bit differently from the usual night at the theatre. It's billed as an 'opera in nuce' — a seed of an opera — and the composer describes it as an 'opera without words'.

That's the first thing to get your head around: there's no singing in the traditional sense. The whole thing is based on Friedrich de la Motte-Fouqué's Undine, the old tale of a water nymph who gives up her life as a water spirit to love and to gain a soul, only to be betrayed by the man she loves. It's a story that's inspired generations of poets and composers, and this version stages that drama without a single spoken word. Instead, the organ, the saxophone and the field recordings take over as the voices, and the audience is drawn into the stage space rather than just watching from the stalls. It's performed as an immersive experience for female solo voice, organ, saxophone, piano and field recordings.

The line-up on the night is Sasha Elina on voice, Artur Vidal on saxophone, Eva-Maria Houben on organ and Marjolaine Charbin on piano. The field recordings are provided by Vidal and Houben, so those sounds are coming from the performers themselves. Between the four of them, they're covering the voice, the organ, the saxophone and the piano, with the recordings layered in on top.

It runs from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm, about two hours in total, at St James Garlickhythe on Garlick Hill, London EC4V 2AF. Admission is free.