“to revel in the seemingly endless völundarhús”

Such are the musings of visual artist and composer Hildur Elísa Jónsdóttir on opera, a medium that is currently a focal point of her artistic practice. Based in Reykjavík and Amsterdam, Hildur Elísa utilizes interdisciplinary methods to explore the mundanity of everyday life and to critique our collective definition of socially constructed reality in order to envision alternative realities. With a background in both music and visual art, Hildur Elísa, initially intimidated by language and its potentially constricting influence upon music’s interpretation, developed a passion for opera: “I got into the habit of working in this operatic mode, and it's so exciting that I don't think I will ever go back.” 

fanfare, “an exploration of what opera can be,” premiered in 2024 at the Sandberg Instituut Graduation Exhibition in Amsterdam, where Hildur Elísa earned her master’s degree in operatic performance art. According to the artist, “each of fanfare’s movements represents a different means of transportation while highlighting the internal struggles the fast-paced city life invokes. During the performances, performers travel through the exhibition or concert space, immersing themselves and the audience in a playful yet serious way through sound, movement and repetition.” fanfare consisted ofthree movements: demons possessed (laughing women), frequency of immediacy or núna strax, and to revel in the seemingly endless völundarhús. Within each movement, Hildur Elísa explored the city soundscape through both the human voice and bodily gesture. One movement depicted two women holding a plastic bag of flowers in between them before commencing to walk backwards while imitating the sounds of cars going into reverse; another was inspired by the perpetual bicycle traffic and congestion of Amsterdam.

In recent years, opera has become increasingly visible within Icelandic contemporary classical music. Composers such as Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson have composed operas challenging traditional operatic form and narrative, as well as ruminating upon unorthodox subject matter such as societal response to mental psychosis in his 2024 opera Gleðilegi geðrofsleikurinn (Lunacy: A Joyous Play). Moreover, music festivals such as Reykjavík Opera Days have provided an indispensable platform for the production and performance of new operas by encouraging compositional and performative experimentation, international collaboration, and the staging of operas at nontraditional locations within Reykjavík. 

Alongside this development in Icelandic contemporary classical music, concepts associated with opera have also become increasingly prevalent within Icelandic contemporary visual art. Interdisciplinary artists such as Ragnar Kjartansson and Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir have de/re-contextualized traditional operatic techniques and archetypes within their oeuvre. Through works like Ragnar’s Bliss (2020), a continuous twelve-hour recreation of the closing minutes of Mozart’s TheMarriage of Figaro, and Ásta Fanney’s Hyena Opera (2023), a sound poetry exploration of sonic and physical spatiality and audience engagement, each artist recalls and subverts operatic tropes and forms, invoking both absurdity and profundity.

Emerging as key members of a younger generation embracing opera in this vein, Hildur Elísa Jónsdóttir and Sigrún Gyða Sveinsdóttir have notably made their mark as both visual artists and composers, recognizing the art form as a medium bound with artistic potentiality. In this context, opera’s inherently interdisciplinary nature is one likely reason for the increased interest in opera amongst visually based artists, with the foundations of opera’s conceptual and practical interdisciplinarity stemming from its prolonged history.

Total Work of Art

First conceived by philosopher and theologian K. F. E. Trahndorff in 1827, the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”) is chiefly associated with composer Richard Wagner, whose 1849 essays Art and Revolution and The Artwork of the Future articulate a multi-dimensional definition of Gesamtkunstwerk, encompassing both past and future. Espousing the oeuvre of Ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus as a profound yet flawed example of total artistic coalescence, Wagner denounced the arts’ subsequent segregation throughout history. Furthermore, Wagner condemned the shallow bravura and sensationalism of the “Grand Opera” style of nineteenth-century opera, which from Wagner’s perspective emphasized theatrical spectacle over dramatic coherence and emotional depth.

Consequently, Wagner applied Gesamtkunstwerkto not only the works of Aeschylus, but also his own then-unrealized paradigm: the unification of music, drama, poetry, visual art, dance and architecture into a singular, transcendent experience. Exemplified by the operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), Wagner spearheaded every facet of the cycle’s production, serving as not only librettist and composer, but also contributing to the costume and stage design, as well as initiating the construction of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, an opera house dedicated to the performance of Wagner’s staged productions. It was inaugurated with the premiere of Der Ring des Nibelungen from August 13 to 17,1876.

As the twentieth century progressed, the principle of Gesamtkunstwerkbecame increasingly multidisciplinary, expanding beyond its musical-theatrical provenance. Pervading architectural developments associated with Art Nouveau and Modernism, Gesamtkunstwerk became the conceptual foundation for architect Walter Gropius’s establishment of the Staatliches Bauhaus in 1919. Furthermore, scholars have inferred the presence of Gesamtkunstwerkunderscoring various twentieth-centurydevelopments withinthe visual arts, including the multimedial explorations of Dadaists such as Hugo Ball and Kurt Schwitters (notably Schwitters’s Merzbau), as well as the interdisciplinarity of Fluxus and later twentieth-century developments oft-categorized under the nebulous guise of Postmodernism. Though the conceptual essence of Gesamtkunstwerk continues to permeate contemporary perspectives and methodologies of artmaking, the genre of opera itselfhas increasingly become a medium traversed by visual artists internationally.

Artists such as Ragnar Kjartansson exemplify this trend, encapsulating Gesamtkunstwerk in a contemporary sense. Since 2001’s The Opera, Ragnar’s interdisciplinary practice, which encompasses performance, installation, music, drawing and painting, has incorporated and engaged with myriad historio-cultural references, with the dramaturgical influence of opera and classical theater permeating his performances and video installations. With repetition and duration being key elements of his artistic practice, works like the aforementioned Bliss (2020) transcend mere ironic abstraction, instead imbuing material as familiar as Mozart’s seminal The Marriage of Figaro with a renewed poignancy and pathos. 

Alongside such independent artistic endeavors, opera houses have also launched various initiatives incorporating the visual arts into their institutional frameworks. Established in 1998 in cooperation with the Vienna State Opera, Safety Curtain is an exhibition series developed by the non-profit organization museum in progress. “Media-specific, context-dependent and temporary,” museum in progress advocates for the integration of art into everyday life through the recontextualization of public and media spaces. With Safety Curtain, museum in progress transforms the safety curtain of the Vienna State Opera into a temporary exhibition space for contemporary art. Beginning with Kara Walker, Safety Curtain has incorporated a wide breadth of artists, including David Hockney, Matthew Barney, Joan Jonas, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Cao Fei and Pipilotti Rist. 

Another prominent initiative converging contemporary visual art with the opera house is Sydney Opera House Presents: Contemporary Art. Emphasizing the commissioning and exhibition of contemporary artists, the Sydney Opera House is “situated as a catalyst for visual artists to stage open-ended exhibitions, installations and performances that offer insights into the most pressing cultural, political and social questions of our society.” Commissioning artists such as William Kentridge, Megan Cope, Lauren Brincat and Cherine Fahd, Sydney Opera House endeavors to encapsulate the breadth of artistic expression, incorporating temporal-based arts such as performance, sound and choreography, and digital forms such as film and video. Though this programming by Vienna State Opera and Sydney Opera House provides a vital platform for the engagement of contemporary art with the opera house, it also exemplifies the long-standing artistic gesture of transforming gallery spaces into operatic stages or expanding experiences beyond the gallery walls. This recontextualization of physical space is proving just as crucial to the youngest generation of artists staging contemporary opera, who endeavor to cultivate audience engagement outside of the opera house.

Make It Current

Initially disinterested in opera as a medium, Sigrún Gyða gradually realized opera’s dramatic potential through her study of classical vocal techniques. Formally educated in violin, classical singing and visual art, Sigrún Gyða aspired to merge her abilities in visual art and music, indicating “that's my dream, to be able to work in writing music, making music, and then putting it into a visual context.” Amongst other works, this coalescence manifested in a series of three sound sculptures entitled Code’s Dream (2021). Despite the widespread turmoil induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was this disruption that enabled Sigrún Gyða’s sound sculptures to burgeon: “This was quite a groundbreaking piece for me! It was during the pandemic, and I was in a quarantine hotel in Reykjavík, where I was locked inside, and I couldn’t do anything but write music. So, I wrote these arias about nature and man-made systems taking over nature.” 

Code’s Dream was featured in the group exhibition Within Reach (Teygja) in 2021. Curated by Sunna Ástþórsdóttir, Within Reach was part of a series of summer exhibitions in public space entitled The Wheel (Hjólið). Initiated by the Reykjavík Association of Sculptors (Myndhöggvarafélagið í Reykjavík), the yearly exhibitions organized under The Wheel transpire in close proximity to walking and biking paths in various neighborhoods of Reykjavik, cultivating interaction between art and public space. In Code’s Dream, each sculpture was presented as a QR code, corresponding to a human-made system that denoted their location of installation: nature in the Botanical Garden of Reykjavík, exercise and fitness outside of World Class Laugar gym, and sea transportation at Skarfagarðar, nearby Skarfaklettur and the Viðey Ferry Terminal.

Upon approaching each sculpture, the viewer scanned the QR code, utilizing their phone, and was immediately directed to an audio recording. With the “voices of the QR code” performed by Sigrún Gyða and Hildur Elísa Jónsdóttir, each sculpture was, according to the artist: “a character who lives in digital clouds and sings an aria to their surroundings. In fact, the ode is more about their inner longing and desire, which underscores humans’ unilateral relationship with their environment.” Code’s Dream exemplified not only Sigrún Gyða’s growing compositional prowess for the human voice and the voice’s capacity for direct articulation of contemporary topics, but also fulfilled her aspiration to visually contextualize music within a physical environment. The confluence of these elements, together with her enthusiasm for cross-disciplinary collaboration, ultimately resulted in the artist’s embrace of opera as a medium of auspicious potential.

However, Sigrún Gyða strived to not only explore the aesthetic possibilities of opera, but also challenge the historical and cultural particularities of opera as well, including opera’s enduring reputation as an aesthetically pretentious or culturally “bourgeois” medium. Instead of disproving or disregarding this perception, Sigrún Gyða exploits it, endeavoring to “work with [opera] in a conceptual sense. If you look at opera as a high-class thing, how you can create contrast by putting it together with something that is more open, or what some people might say is ‘lower class.’” This juxtaposition, through which the artist interrogates the dichotomous nature of opera’s reception, ultimately yielded her primary objective in the creation and presentation of new opera: “I am trying to make opera more accessible by bringing it down to earth, where we can actually understand it! And show it to younger audiences, making it more affordable and shorter, while engaging with subjects we understand and want to hear about—making it current.”

Skjóta, the first result of Sigrún Gyða’s exploration of the operatic medium, premiered on 7 June 2024 at Ásmundarsalur in Reykjavík. Part of a larger exhibition by the artist, in which viewers could observe the opera’s set when not in performance, Skjóta examined the convergence of two seemingly dissimilar topics in order to stimulate urgency and initiate discussion of a key global issue:

The opera explores the intersection of football culture and climate change, highlighting how unity within football can foster solidarity, as well as asking questions about climate guilt and anxiety. Skjótareflects on the jeopardy of stepping out of ‘halftime’ to take action rather than remaining passive, whether an individual can truly have a say in the rapid progression and politics of climate change. The work is the same length as a football game.

During the opera’s production, Sigrún Gyða attended residencies in Brighton, UK and Värmland, Sweden, where she researched football culture, climate issues and explored their possible connections. The cast of Skjóta consisted of three operatic vocalists, each inhabiting the role of a key member of a football club: Vera Hjördís Matsdóttir as “the player,” Kristín Sveinsdóttir as “the owner” and Sigrún Gyða herself as “the manager”. With libretto, composition, set design and direction by the artist, the three vocalists were accompanied by a small chamber ensemble, consisting of Baldur Hjörleifsson on electronics and guitar, violinists Gunnhildur Daðadóttir and Helga R. Óskarsdóttir, violist Anna Elísabet Sigurðardóttir, cellist Júlía Mogensen and bassist Snorri Skúlason.

Additionally, a pre-recorded choir was utilized during the performance, the audio of which was derived from Sigrún Gyða’s video work MID, time of the foresighted silence (2024), in whichshe collaborated with children from the Reykjavík Football Club KR.To Sigrún Gyða, Skjóta embodies not only the interdisciplinary, cross-collaborative potential of opera, but also opera’s capacity as a platform for cultivating discourse surrounding contemporary social issues such as climate change, expressing that “we can actually do something—that we have a say and we can work together towards making a difference”.

The Inverse of Life

As with Sigrún Gyða, Hildur Elísa endeavors to make opera more accessible and digestible for contemporary audiences. As Hildur Elísa elaborates, “less and less people go to see opera because it's within these huge institutions and, when it comes with that baggage, it's just too much. There's something so innately human about this art form though—it's so easily relatable—but now there seems to be a framework you need to overcome.” For Hildur Elísa, “overcoming the framework” has become a primary objective in her composing of contemporary opera, as well as utilizing opera as a medium for, like Sigrún Gyða, exploring subject matter relevant to contemporary audiences. Hildur Elísa’s 2023 opera Seeking Solace exemplifies this initiative, as the workanalyzes the striking dichotomy between the guarded professionalism of everyday work life and the internalized turmoil within every individual. 

Presented at Outvert Art Space in Ísafjörður, the exhibition Boekie Woekie & Friends at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam and the 2023 Tokyo Biennale, Seeking Solace’s libretto was assembled via texts Hildur Elísa discovered on candid and confessional videos on TikTok, “highlighting the profound duality between the open expressions people share online and the guarded fronts they present in their everyday lives.” To further accentuate this dichotomy, the artist set the intimate lyrics to melodies derived from traditional Icelandic folk songs. This juxtaposition of the unrelentingly distressed lyrics with the familiarity and reassurance of the folk songs generates “a paradox that many relate to from their own lives in regard to their inner dialogue as opposed to external circumstances.” Despite the dire subject matter of Seeking Solace, Hildur Elísa is by no means unaware of the surrealism inherent within opera, a staged medium that requires its protagonists to sing their emotional states. Indeed, it is this inherent absurdity that both Hildur Elísa and Sigrún Gyða recognize as a fundamental component of opera’s potency as an artistic medium, whose abstractions mirror quotidian experience in order to envisage new possibilities.

                  This understanding of opera’s inherent duality—its ability to simultaneously convey deep emotional truth and embrace the surreal—extends beyond individual works and into the evolving landscape of opera itself. As the art form continues to push creative boundaries, institutions are adapting to make it more accessible to new audiences. Iceland’s recent initiative to establish a National Opera is a key step in this direction, addressing long-standing challenges in sustaining opera productions and fostering interest in such a small community. In this context, opera’s increasing integration with the visual arts—through innovative stage design, multimedia, and cross-disciplinary collaboration—offers a way to reinvigorate the art form. By merging opera’s emotional depth with the dynamic possibilities of visual expression, these collaborations not only make opera more inclusive, but also create a platform for new forms of artistic dialogue and innovation.