Nicolas Simeha in world premiere of "Seven Stones"

Nicolas Simeha in Seven Stones (Photo: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence)

French barihunk Nicolas Simeha will be one of four singers in the  world premiere of Ondřej Adámek's "Seven Stones." The a capella piece is written for four solo singers and twelve choristers. Including today, the work will have five performances through July 14 at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence's Jeu de Paume Theatre.

Ondřej Adámek is considered one of the leading representatives of the European new wave of composers. He based the libretto on a work by Icelandic poet Sjón, who is a frequent collaborator with Björk.

The opera’s seven tableaux evoke seven stones, seven scenes that connect the Biblical era to modern times. The condensed, interdisciplinary work proposes a new performance canvas in which the singers are invited to double up as instrumentalists, dancers and actors.

The opera's website description of the story is as follows:

"A mineralogist-collector who has got lost down a snowy lane remembers: many years earlier, he had gone in search of the first stone – the one that was almost used to stone to death the adulterous woman who was saved by Christ. During this seven-year long journey that takes him from Buenos Aires to Paris and from Japan to Iceland, the collector discovered many other stones... And the end of his journey leads to the conclusion of his quest – and to tragedy."

Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

Nicolas Simeha is perfectly suited to this work, as he is a member of the multidisciplinary company Elastic Theatre with whom he premiered Baroque Box and Julius. He collaborated with the Dancer Darren Ellis, appeared as the first bad robber in Judith Weir’s Vanishing Bridegroom,, sang with a computer for Oded Ben Tal, premiered Kate Whitley’s opera In Flagrante, embodied Gurdjieff’s thoughts sculpted by Giorgi Janiashvili, and even modeled for photographer Romain Leblanc.