New opera explores the inner workings of the soul
Nature often serves as muse for Chaya Czernowin, but the composer turned to one of art’s most beguiling sources of inspiration for her new work, which just premiered at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Czernowin’s opera, “Heart Chamber,” transforms one of the largest music theaters in Germany into an intimate space “where there is nobody else,” she said, and where the beauty, as well as the pain and uncertainty associated with falling in love grabs center stage. “I take this huge hall,” said Czernowin, Harvard’s Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Composition, “and it becomes the soul of somebody.” But exactly how do you craft a piece of music around such a singularly personal experience and make it resonate with each member of an audience of 1,600? Czernowin’s solution is to incorporate all of the voices that simultaneously swirl through the mind of anyone who has ever had his or her heart filled, or...