Composition — Éna Brennan
Éna Brennan
Scroll
 

Opera

Selection of works

Rupture Series

Collection of pieces

Choral Music

Selection of works

Instrumental Music

Selection of works

HOLD YOUR BREATH

Opera by Éna Brennan, Hugo Canoilas and David Pountney

 

World Premiere

Commissioned by the Bregenzer Festspiele as part of the Opernatelier,
in cooperation with Kunsthaus Bregenz.

August 15 & 17 2024 - 8:00 p.m | Werkstattbühne Bregenz, Austria

dur. approx. 70 minutes (no intermission)
sung in English with German surtitles

In a society where the individual’s life depends on the unemotional decisions of a selected few, a young woman tries to keep the memory of her grandmother alive. Suddenly, humankind faces some kind of creature and is seized and changed by its movements. Some claim to have created this mysterious octopus-like being. How is this creature related to human beings and do they have a hold on their lives?

Over several years, the composer Éna Brennan, the director and librettist Sir David Pountney and the visual artist Hugo Canoilas worked together in the Opernatelier to create a music theatre for the Werkstattbühne. Its main character right from the beginning is one of the most fascinating – and probably most intelligent – animals on this planet, an octopus. The singers’ voices and the dancers’ movements merge with the musicians whose sounds are electronically transmitted, thus creating a music theatre that engages all senses.

As a violinist and composer Éna Brennan wanders between different worlds. In 2020, she became internationally known with her short opera Rupture as part of the 20 Shots of Opera at the Irish National Opera. The visual artist Hugo Canoilas is known for transforming galleries into walkable stages. Born in Lisbon, the multimedia artist now commutes between Vienna, New York and Portugal. Sir David Pountney returns to Bregenz where he left his mark on the Bregenzer Festspiele as artistic director from 2004 to 2014 with several productions on the Seebühne. 


The Official Scott Hendricks
The Red Leader | Priest | Dollmaker | Speaker Sam Furness
The Black Leader | Dollmaker Maria Hegele
The Nurse | Dollmaker Idunnu Münch
The Granddaughter | Dollmaker | Woman Shira Patchornik
Questioners Petr Nedbal | Hellen Boyko | Romane Ruggiero

Stage Direction and Libretto Sir David Pountney
Visual Artist (Stage | Costume Design) Hugo Canoilas
Musical Director Karen Ní Bhroin
Choreography Caroline Finn
Dramaturge Olaf A. Schmitt

Members of the SYMPHONIEORCHESTER VORARLBERG

 

About the Opera Studio

‘What does an opera of the 21st century sound like, look like and how do we experience it? The Opera Atelier is a joint project by Bregenz Festival and the Kunsthaus Bregenz that creates a space for artists and their ideas, explorations and thoughts paving the way for an opera to premiere at the Werkstattbühne. The audience is invited to follow this process over several years. Following the premiere of To the Lighthouse in 2017 and Wind in 2021, now it is time for an explorer and a returnee to set out on a new adventure: Belgian-Irish composer Éna Brennan, the Portuguese artist Hugo ­Canoilas and the British stage director Sir David Pountney, formerly artistic director of the Bregenz Festival.’
Read more


Insight Events


Press

Hold Your Breath features in a ORF segment on Austrian TV showcasing the remaining operas to premiere at the 2024 Bregenz Festival.

This was innovative musical theatre, as far removed as possible from any kind of genius or star cult, but at the same time relaxed, authentic and completely convincing.
— Anna Mika, Kronen Zeitung
The interaction of live music - eight musicians from the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra on moving podiums and five voices under the overall direction of the Irish conductor Karen Ni Bhroin - and electronic music creates a suggestive suction effect. Stylistically, Brennan’s music is located between medieval drone sounds, subtle vocal music, baroque fanfares, strong outbursts and a dark background noise. The eagerly awaited result of the opera studio is moving, ambiguous, enigmatic and was enthusiastically received by the audience.
— Katharina von Glasenapp, Neue Vorarlberger
At the enthusiastically applauded premiere of the “Opera in promenade” on Thursday, one could get up close and personal with the performers. “Hold Your Breath” can be described as a collage or, better, as a walk-in installation, whose musical, textual and visual elements appear to be of equal importance ... the work targets the will to perceive, which was obviously activated in the audience, and evades classification as part of the new musical theatre.
— k.at
Members of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra play the chamber music composition by Éna Brennan, interwoven with electronic sounds, on four movable platforms, while eight dancing and singing artists express with moving urgency their grief at the destruction of living spaces and all beings, as well as warnings about human ignorance. The visitors to the performance themselves become part of the gripping and oppressive events.
— Der Westallgäuer

David Pountney recites an excerpt of Hold Your Breath, broadcast on Austrian TV channel ORF as part of the 2024 Bregenz Festival Opening Press Conference.


Photography © Bregenzer Festspiele / Anja Köhler

Breathwork

commissioned by the Irish National Opera as part of their 2023/2024 Season

This intimate new opera by the multi-talented Éna Brennan (aka Dowry) — composer, arranger, violinist and graphic designer — is a statement of horror and protest in response to the destruction of our environment.
Breathwork, with a text by Olivier award-winning director David Pountney, offers a foretaste of a larger operatic collaboration that will premiere at Austria’s Bregenz Festival next year.

28-30 Sept, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 7pm, 8pm & 9pm
Running time 15-20 minutes. Six performances daily.

Sung in English.

‘Breathwork’ is a companion work to a larger composition ‘Hold Your Breath’ by Éna Brennan and David Pountney which has been commissioned by Bregenzer Festspiele. More info here.


CAST

Kelli-Ann Masterson (Soprano), Michelle O'Rourke (Mezzo-soprano) & Andrew Gavin (Tenor)

CREATIVE TEAM

Director – John McIlduff
Music Director – Karen Ní BhroinMusic
Set & Costume Design – Sabine Dargent
Lighting Design – Alan Mooney


★★★★ – ...excellent design, superlative voices and superb music...
— Chris O'Rourke, The Arts Review
Brennan’s soundscape is tonal patchwork. Snatches of musical ideas emerge from around the studio via live voice and speakers and recorded sound effects, the score creating a desolate petrified landscape on the brink of extinction.
— THOROUGHLY GOOD CLASSICAL MUSIC BLOG
★★★½ – serene and beautiful... a delicate vision
— Michael Lee, GoldenPlec

Listen back to RTE Arena 15th September 2023

★★★ – Breathwork, Éna Brennan’s new work for Irish National Opera, presents a spectacular contrast between extreme intimacy of performance and the vast, global scale of its primary theme, environmental destruction.
— Michael Dungan, The Irish Times
Breathwork is a work of indictment and culpability and warning. Its message is not new. It’s not hopeless, but it grapples with the urgency and seriousness of the moment. At the end, the audience in the dark faces each other alone. We did this. It’s not enough for that to be known and understood. It has to be felt.
— Brendan Finan, The Journal of Music

Recording session in Windmill Lanes Recording Studios

Conductor: Karen Ní Bhroin

Tenor: Andrew Gavin
Mezzo: Michelle O’Rourke
Soprano: Kelli-Ann Masterson

Violin: Sarah Sew
Cello: Brian O’Kane
Trumpet: Eric Castillo Mora
Trombone: Ross Lyness

Ronan Fox

Ronan Fox

Rupture Series

inspired by the disruptive organic wall of sound when thunder/storms occur and how the sound versus visual delay plays with our perception of time and distance.

"the dew is falling on your head,
can you feel it
can you see me fall apart"


Rupture I

for Tonnta Vocal Ensemble
features 6 voice pairings (each pair facing one another) and a pre-recorded track of whispers/violin/chord clusters and electronics

18.03.2016 Tonnta Vocal Ensemble, RARITY, Natural History Museum, Dublin (Premiere)

Rupture II

written for mezzo-soprano and baritone

20.03.2016 Tonnta Vocal Ensemble, FUTURE COMPOSERS, The Chocolate Factory, Dublin (Premiere)
03.05.2017 Tonnta Vocal Ensemble, Kaleidoscope Night, Bello Bar, Dublin

Rupture III

written for soprano and FX

26.09.2018 Elizabeth Hilliard, For The Voice by the Irish Composers Collective, Bello Bar, Dublin (Premiere)

Rupture IV

written for violin, voice and tape
(this piece uses the score of Rupture III as a guide)

01.02.2019 Éna Brennan, Exploring Electronics by the Irish Composers Collective, Irish Georgian Society, Dublin (Premiere)

Rupture V

written for upper voices

17.10.2019 Dulciana, Dowry headline show, Pepper Canister Church, Dublin (Premiere)

Rupture (micro-opera)

written for soprano, mezzo, vibraphone and string ensemble
commissioned by Irish National Opera

17.12.2020 Online launch (Premiere)


The series was initially inspired by the organic wall of sound & disruptions in thunder/storms and how the sound versus visual delay plays with our perception of time and distance. This then developed into the exploration of conflict, dichotomy, rupture within the human body and mind - the voice being the primary vehicle for this rupture to take place. 

Rupture I, originally commissioned by Tonnta Vocal Ensemble, was written for mixed voices and tape. It is a dialogue between three pairs of singers, unable to hear/see/understand each other despite standing face to face.

Rupture II, for soprano and baritone is a condensed variation where the two singers are unable to hear/see/understand each other despite standing face to face.

Rupture III is for solo soprano and FX where I treat the breakdown of a distant conversation with oneself - the amplified, looped and affected voice symbolising our many voices and inner thoughts.

These inner thoughts become a tape part for Rupture IV alongside the use of violin and electronics. Rupture V is a piece for our many voices, written for upper voices choir Dulciana.

The last piece of the series at present is Rupture VI, a filmed micro-opera commissioned by Irish National Opera, due to be released 17th December 2020. This edition is the development of the theme into a fuller dramatic narrative for soprano and mezzo portraying a woman and her conscience, accompanied by vibraphone and string ensemble.

Rupture VII is in development, for strings, vibraphone and upper voices. The piece was the winning entry for the Sounding the Feminists and National Concert Hall Established Composer grant.


Scores


Recordings

Laura Aurora

Laura Aurora

 

Choral Music


Recordings

 
 

Instrumental Music


Recordings