Voice Box

"Intellectually stimulating and teasingly funny art of our time."

"This three-hour, precisely timed sound structure is a confusing, constantly moving deconstruction of language, voice and sound. […] The bizarre fascination that the spectacle has created will not get out of your head so quickly."

"Voice Box was full of tongue in cheek [...] that allowed the audience to fully join in."

"The avant-garde business trip to the green creates a situational border experience with a feel-good program."

"The audience […] experiences an masterfull musical performance, which is then deconstructed in an irritating sequence of events at different locations in a deliberately bizarre manner."

"Delightful and playful experimental opera from young Finnish composer"

"The most enthusiastic reception got 'ettette' by Miika Hyytiäinen"

"Genuinely avantgardistic German music theatre."

"Ohrenvergnügendes Tafelkonfekt"

"Musically the performance is excellent."

An academic opera role-play about voices in boxes and outside of them

Social Media

Composer Miika Hyytiäinen_ Concept, Composition, Libretto
Singer Mia Heikkinen_ Voice analysis on the video/”Prof. M.H.”
Flutist/Soprano/Circus Artist Jacintha Darmström_ Laboratory assistant
Pianist Maija Parko_ Keyboards

Voice Box: “Larynx” [ˈlaːrʏŋks] – “Der Kehlkopf” – “kurkunpää”

If there is one thing that does not fit in any boxes, it’s human voice.
And yet we do try! Professional/unprofessional voice, female/male voice, Fachsystem and the registers: endless lists of exotic and contradicting names!

Voice Box opens these boxes, analyses them and makes brutal fun of silliness of all this. The final box explodes like piñata and the coloratura soprano becomes an actual human being: “I’m not my Fach, I’m me!”

Not only the human voice crows outside the boxes: In Voice Box also the roles are in continuous flow. At least we know this: The composer Miika Hyytiäinen is writing his artistic PhD and makes a computer-based analysis of the vocal possibilities of the voice of the coloratura soprano Mia Heikkinen. This is the starting point of the whole vocal massacre.

There the poor singer is on stage, trapped in a glass box, as a video. The most dominant voice belongs to Professor M.H., a nosy besserwisser with the voice and body of the trapped soprano Mia Heikkinen, but the gestures and words of the composer Miika Hyytiäinen. Everything is accompanied by videos and a sleepy laboratory assistant, who seems to fall in the most uncomfortable sleeping positions even while she is accompanying the crazy professor with flute and voice.

Performances:

Helsingin oopperakesä/ Helsinki Contemporary Opera Festival

Aleksanterin teatteri, Helsinki

26/08/2022 19h

27/08/2022 16h

Buy a ticket

Premier

Musiikkitalo Helsinki, 18/5/2017 / 19:00
Duration_ 60 minutes
Further performances_ to be announced

Special thanks for the logo to Ulla Sainio / gentil.fi

PRESS:

Auli Särkiö-Pitkänen, Rondo:

Se on älyllisesti stimuloivaa ja usein kutkuttavan humoristista uuden ajan esittävää taidetta, joka kytkeytyy saumattomasti ympäristömme ilmiöihin, kuten sosiaaliseen mediaan. Voice Box oli piripintojaan myöten täynnä kieli poskella komiikkaa: se irvaili akateemisuudelle, sivalsi siekailematta oopperamaailman jäykkiä rakenteita ja revitteli sisäpiirivitseillä, kuten oopperaaiheisilla nettimeemeillä ja ääniteoreetikoilla. Tämä kaikki oli tehty tavalla, joka otti yleisön mukaan, ei sulkenut sitä ulos.

“Intellectually stimulating and teasingly funny art of our time.”

“Voice Box was full of tongue on cheek […] that allowed the audience to fully join in.”
Voice Box in Rondo and HBL

Trailer of Voice Box