Photos by Mylene Siegers

The plot

Four young people depart in a train. They try to guess their destination. 
Geo chats with his Aunt on Skype. 
The discussion draws a parallel between nowadays civilization and the Atlantis myth. What are the similarities? Is our end near?
The others reflect on the mentioned topics: war, love, individual and global changes. Strange things start to happen, they have weird feelings and hallucinations.
From time to time they sing Chorals in old german: these are the Gods,
gathering to decide if humanity is repeating Atlantis' mistakes and to make decision. Gradually the Aunt reveals herself: she is an Angel, the messenger of the Gods.  
She tells them their destination: their mission is to convince the Gods:
"Humanity is worth it, it deserves more patience."
The Final Choral is interrupted by the youngsters' attempts. 
They each try to convince with singing -  a solo vocal cadenza, the text of which is written by the singers of the respective roles.
The question stays opened; the epilogue ends with another question mirroring the prologue ('God plays with his Creation'): 
 - Everything floated out of him, how come it is still all closed in his lap?

The text

sinking_official_working_scenario_.pdf
File Size: 104 kb
File Type: pdf
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SINKING - Sztojanov's opera premiered by the DNOA 
(Dutch National Opera Academy)

In 2013 january the DNOA premiered Sztojanov's first opera, SINKING.
The singers, musicians, staging, visuals, all were best quality. As a result - six sold out concerts on the opera nights 'Fourstelling' , one of the four operas performed being Georgi's first 
'traditional' opera.
The libretto was created through an experimental way:
5 chosen people, closely related to the composer (including himself) were the creators of their own characters. They "lived through" the surrealistic situations and tried to react as they would according to their personal character. The story was prepared by the composer, who - like in an RPG (role play game) described the group their environment, the happenings around them and even indicated some emotions and thoughts in them, while they as characters could be free to react how they feel like it, and as they couldnt know the end of the story, in a way could be as surprised as the audience would be.
After more months of the virtual contact through emails the 4 youngsters met in Den Haag and finished the raw material for the libretto on skype sitting around a table and adding another layer of "documentalism".
Choosing the parts of these conversations and shaping them into a libretto was the next step.
Creating the musical world of each character, situation, motive, following symbolically the story by the orchestration, and after few months of hard work seeing the piece in a great performance with incredible singers, 
astonishing visuals by the scenographer students of the AHK, and really memorable two last performances in Amsterdam with the musical leading of MaNoj Kamps.