TYCHO BRAHE. Opera.

Written and directed by Sigurd Fischer Olsen, Lena Buchacz, Roar Sletteland

Premiere 3 June 2016, 7 pm

Further performances: 4 June 2016, 2pm and 7 pm

at GRAND Bergen, Nedre Ole Bullsplass 1, 5012 Bergen

The story centers around the death of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). At a banquet in Prague, Brahe drank copious amounts of wine, but etiquette prevented him from getting up from the table to relieve his bladder. He then became ill and died a few weeks later. This anecdote, combined with the theory that he was actually murdered with mercury by a jealous Kepler (or a Danish king), serves as an entrance to the strange and exotic world of early modern science. Much of the performance happens around meals, the public space of the day, and we will meet characters like the brilliant but self loathing Johannes Kepler, the psychotic parvenu Nicolaus Reymers Baer (Ursus), the irresponsible alchemist Erik Lange, the superstitious emperor Rudolph II, the pompous Duke of Braunschweig who was so taken by Tycho's rotating Mercury statue, a clairvoyant dwarf, a beer drinking moose – and in the middle of it all, the enormously confident, curious, rash, enigmatic, arrogant, unstoppable scientist and nobleman Tycho Brahe.

Lisa Dillan, soprano

Morten Barrikmo, clarinet

Jostein Gundersen, recorders

Sound design Thorolf Thuestad / Light design Hans Skogen / Costume Gøril Wallin / Producer Elisabeth Carmen Gmeiner

Anthony Ringdal, bassoon; Gjermund Wold, horn; Håvard Sannes, trombone; Craig Farr, percussion; Sigurd Fischer Olsen, viola; Eline Rafteseth, double bass; Eline Sundal, cello; Sindre Sortland, guitars and banjo. Olsen/Buchacz/Sletteland/Thuestad, voices, nose whistles, bagpipes.

Produced by Ursus produksjoner in collaboration with BIT Teatergarasjen, BEK and Ny Musikk Bergen.

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