We talked with Miguel Galperín, director of the NGO Atlanticx, a platform dedicated to promoting contemporary opera creation. Learn all about the upcoming edition of the Winter School, a training event culminating in the premiere of works during the Festival Nueva Ópera (New Opera Festival). All the details to enroll and learn more about the Winter School in this feature.

By Virginia Chacon Dorr / Ph. Gisela Peláez

The Winter School, an advanced training and artistic experimentation platform, opens registrations for its 2024 edition. This intensive seminar will take place from September 30th to October 5th at the Fundación Williams (Buenos Aires, Argentina). Aimed at creators and artists from all disciplines interested in contemporary opera, registrations will be available online from June 17th on the website www.atlanticx.org . Miguel Galperín provides more details about this upcoming edition and reflects on the success of previous ones.

“The most important thing for me, and I feel tremendous support from Martín Oliver and the entire Fundación Williams, is that we care about young artists interested in opera being able to train seriously.”
Miguel Galperín

The Winter School is characterized by exploring various aesthetic parameters in the field of contemporary opera. What aesthetic aspects and approaches will be further explored in this 2024 edition?

For us (including Martín Oliver, director of Fundación Williams, with whom we have been organizing the School since we first conceived it in 2017), the most important thing is to define what is new in New Opera. In this sense, the first thing to say is that we approach it as a question that is collectively and very specifically answered among the different generations participating in the School. This is because we design the content with the teachers, but also because this design specifically includes giving a lot of space to the ideas of the fellows, who are undoubtedly the protagonists.

It is also true that, as the general responsible for the matter, I give “nudges” to the question. There are indications, let’s say, that I find attractive when we think about contemporaneity in opera. One that I have been emphasizing is that we have to consider that when we write for the voice, we are working with a device that, in a modern acoustic sense (inevitably mediated), is technological. Another focus that, I believe, illuminates paths of novelty in opera, is related to practices of contemporary performative art. But the reality is that, beyond all this, the most important thing for me, and in this I feel tremendous support from Martín Oliver and the entire Fundación Williams, is that we care about young artists interested in opera being able to train seriously. We are very careful not to promote the fellows to “rush” into production. The School is, first and foremost, a training instance. Intensive, fast, it is true, and this is because our fellows are young professionals who in other theatrical and artistic areas already have a lot of experience.

Could you tell us how the process of forming the body of teachers was defined and what criteria were considered to form this team?

It is a group of teachers, the majority of whom will premiere works during the New Opera Festival. Marina Rosenfeld, for example, will be performing Free Exercise. Gabi Labi, a highly interesting Lithuanian playwright, is collaborating with Tomás Cabado, an Argentine composer, and with the Lithuanian director Greta Stiormer to premiere some “estranged” lullabies (the working title is “Lullabies for adults”). Natacha Diels, perhaps one of the most creative young composers in the United States, is working with various local musicians and artists, including Daniel Bruno and Ina Morales, to premiere a piece in Buenos Aires. Marina Llinás brings to the Festival her “Concert for the Battle of El Tala,” co-created with composer Gabriel Chwojnick.

We can say that we have always liked the idea of theoretical aspects intersecting with practical ones in the School, but that this year the intersection will be very concrete. We can think of a “dissected” edition of the School, which will be very focused on analyzing with the fellows what happens on the Festival stages.

Throughout the previous editions, the Winter School has hosted various cohorts of scenic creators. What assessment do you make of these past experiences?

The reality is that the School is part of the New Opera platform. And New Opera, as I said before, is the desire we have, together with Fundación Williams, to redefine, rethink, etc. With this I mean that the assessment, which is very positive, is measured like this because after the School the cohorts have the possibility of staying connected to us. The School is phase 1, let’s say. Then the fellows continue in the residencies (which for some take place abroad, within agreements we have with institutions in France and the USA) and finally everything ends in premieres within the Festival, whose programming is largely the result of this platform/process. The sum of this is that today opera is a possibility for creation. I see it even in my visual artist colleagues. Everyone wants to do an opera today, something that may seem like a trend, or trivial, or newcomer, but that fulfills the objective that we set with Fundación Williams almost 10 years ago: a more musical modernity, musical traditions in contemporary art, composers as modern artists, etc. We are nostalgic too.

What do you think are the unique experiences and content that Winter School can provide to those who enroll?

The group of teachers and tutors is always extraordinary. Every year we make sure to put together a teaching staff of “references” at the national and international levels and who, in many cases (due to the intensity level of their professional careers), are not teaching regularly. On the other hand, the School is “horizontal”: much of the most valuable things that those who enroll can get come from their fellow colleagues. Consider in this sense that the School has a very careful, and even competitive, selection of students, who come to us perhaps without much experience in opera specifically, but with a lot of work developed in their fields of origin. This is also key: the cohorts are very interdisciplinary, something that adds perspectives and possibilities. Finally, I would say that it is important for young artists to be within the New Opera platform. This is because having attended the School enables the artist to specific calls, both for creation residencies in Argentina and abroad, and for creation grants.