GAIA-24. Opera of the World

A geo-historical opera about war and its impact on the environment. A dystopian spectacle about the rebellion of nature against the destructive power of humanity.

The project analyzes the effects of the destructive human impact on the ecological situation in the world, in particular the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The creators are looking for new ways of talking about ecology on the stage of musical theater, new methodologies of performance, movement, vocal and musical, and work on “extended” scenography that combines the human body, theatrical space and the surrounding “cosmos” in the context of the natural, cultural and political environment.

When the land yields a bountiful harvest, prepare for a great war. When the seas dry up, rivers change their beds, and forests become uninhabitable due to radiation — the empire will soon collapse. When the end of the world comes, the earth and the sky will merge into one endless line. This is how Gaia, Gaia, Terra, Maga, Mother Gaia speak to us.

Gaia, goddess of the Earth and parthenogenetic mother of the universe, gave birth to Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. Mnemosyne gave birth to nine muses. A muse with a “beautiful voice”, Kalliope, gave birth to Orpheus. And so we found ourselves in the museum and on the opera stage. Among the rays of light and the video projection, we wonder: do we still hear what Gaja is saying?

Prologue: On October 9, 2022, philosopher and anthropologist Bruno Latour, an active propagator of the Gaia theory, died in Paris. His last text was devoted to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Latour compared this war to mankind's incessant war with nature and our planet, referring to the “King Oedipus” Sophocles, speaking of Europe in the interregnum — Europe in the age of the realm.

On June 6, 2023, the Russian army blew up a dam in Novaya Kakhovka, committing another war crime and eco-murder. A week later, 18 billion cubic meters of water flowed into the Black Sea. The Sea of Kakhov, along with the landscapes from the opera “Chernobyldorf”, ceased to exist. The Dnieper returned to its natural trough, creating new, constantly changing landscapes on the front line of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

After the drying up of the Aral Sea and the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the destruction of the Nowa Kakhovka dam is one of the biggest environmental crimes committed by the Russian colonial regime. However, as in the case of the regeneration of the Chernobyl forest, 2000 square kilometers of soil on the Dnieper, freed from seventy years of captivity of an artificial reservoir, is gradually returning to its natural state. What can be seen from the steep right bank of the Dnieper, observing at the same time the burning theater of war and the reborn “Cossack Amazon”? The slow victory of mother nature and the violent defeat of man.