Wolf grew up in that most civilised of cities,
Munich. She began to compose at the age of seven. From 1974 she
studied with Richard Langley in Norfolk, Virginia. She attended
various Darmstadt master classes in the 1980s. Her most important
works include Gilgal for horn and orchestra written for
Meir Rimon. There was also a ballet score for drum quintet written
for Pfalztheater Kaiserslauten. Her Studies in Breath and Sound
were premiered by the Moscow Symphony in 1998. She is currently
working on a viola concerto for Rivka Golani.
The storyline of this opera tracks the traumatic
coming of age experience of the boy Kirisk. The locale is the
Siberian Nivkhi community. The rite of passage involves Kirisk
going seal hunting with the old man, Organ, Mylgun, a fellow hunter
and Emraijin, the boy's father. All of his companions die at sea
driven from their course by a storm tide and disorientated by
the fog during the voyage back from the seal island. Along the
way there are story tellings and invocations. These include references
to the Nivkhi creation mythos.
It is to Wolf's great credit that the presence
of the all-sustaining and threatening Sea of Okhotsk and the drumming
of the Nivkhi people are suggested with such vividness. The threat
of the Arctic wastes are evoked with unruly and abrasive strangeness
in the lengthy first scene of Act 1 (trs. 5-6, CD1) in which the
rolling and yawing trombones over Organ's long soliloquy remind
the listener of Hovhaness's Ani and Vishnu symphonies.
The attention to clarity in Wolf's orchestration is strong. At
the end of tr. 6 CD1 (5.40) the harp paints unapologetically in
colours that link with the writing of Herrmann (Journey to
the Centre of the Earth) and Vaughan Williams (Sinfonia
Antartica). Skirling strands of violins and abrasively protesting
rolling brassy storm blasts thrash their way through scene 3 (CD1
tr. 8). The persistent quiet burble of the brass is at times like
a subdued echo of the vivace writing for the horn choir
in Janáček's Sinfonietta.
Impressions flood in: the rattle of woodblocks, the creak of the
withered world turning, the glimmer of moonlight, the massive
quietly rolling swell (CD3 tr.1 12.25), the snare-drum roll portending
inimical fate and the bony clatter of some ritual (CD3 tr. 2 00.23)
which in its mesmeric repetitiveness reminds of Reich's Clapping
and Drumming and of the Gamelan Anklung of Britten
and McPhee. The pattering of the violins and woodwind in Act 3
(CD3 tr. 1 6.43) suggests some acquaintance with the symphonies
of Allan Pettersson.
The music is elemental, tonal, not as suave as
Sibelius, angular, punchingly rhythmic, primeval, mixing tribal
chants with chatter and drum rites. Choir and orchestra interweave
like a collision of Tormis and Orff. The music takes Stravinsky's
Sacre as a jumping off point - vigorous and unsophisticated,
crashing in the percussion and grumbling in the bass section of
the woodwind.
If the solo vocal writing can be gloomily introspective
and suggestive of smoke-filled skin tents rather than conversational
ease this is part and parcel of the ruthless folktale which stresses
the remorseless fate of the old and weak and the survival of youth
in the shape of Kirisk. At the end this is no longer the naive
Kirisk who started the voyage but one who carries the weight of
the sacrifice of the three fellow travellers who died to save
him. His story will now be added to the folk memory of his people.
This is not the first time that an Arctic Ocean
mise-en-scène has been chosen. Haakon Børresen’s
opera Kaddara is known because of Lauritz Melchior’s recording
of Ujarak’s Farewell.
Wolf's shamanic opera combines elements of Orff,
Reich, Stravinsky and Tormis. It is here extremely well performed
and recorded. Just a pity that there is no English translation
although all background articles and detailed synopsis are in
English and German. Interesting that a decision was taken to spread
this work across three CDs. It could have gone onto two but presumably
that would have disturbed the continuity of at least two of the
scenes.
Kirisk was premiered at the Pfalztheater
Kaiserslautern in March 2000.
Rob Barnett
Symphony Orchestra RTV Slovenia/Lior
Shambadal 
