| Opera byConstantine Koukias | |
| Librettist | Marianne Fisher |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Based on | The life ofNikola Tesla |
| Premiere | |
Tesla – Lightning in His Hand is a large-scale opera about Serbian American engineer and inventorNikola Tesla (1856–1943), composed byConstantine Koukias, a Tasmanian composer and opera director of Greek ancestry based inAmsterdam, where he is known by his Greek name of Konstantin Koukias, with libretto by Marianne Fisher.
The opera depicts Tesla's life as a series of reversals of fortunes. The two-hour work, sung in English, is in two parts and features a bass, a tenor, a bass-baritone, two sopranos, seven musicians (including atheremin player) and a large male choir. Also audible are clattering typewriters, pigeons (in later life Tesla was deeply affected by the death of a specific white pigeon), Morse code and fragments ofAntonín Dvořák'sNew World Symphony. It also included twoTesla coil as props at its premiere.[1] A warning was issued in the program to audience members who might be wearing "pace-makers, hearing aides, or any form of electric, magnetic, mechanical or metallic implant or prosthetic device".
The full opera was produced in 2003 byIHOS Music Theatre and Opera. It was originally commissioned by theWest Australian Opera and developed over three years through two staged "works in development". Creator and original Artistic Director of Tasmania's10 Days on the Island Festival,Robyn Archer, commissioned the full opera to open the festival in 2003. The work, sponsored by the John Holland Group, was staged in a massive shed on Hobart's docks, where the Tesla coils put on a "spectacular display of electron sparks".[2]
Reviewing the production for the MelbourneAge, David Lander described it as "gorgeous image-based performance art with a fascinating, brittle score in which dilemmas are ignored in favour of sensuality".[3]Tesla was featured onABC Classic FM'sNew Music Australia program[4] and has been cited as far afield as Croatia, where it was noted in a tourist board tribute to the scientist[5] and Croatian Post's web page detailing a stamp to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the inventor's birth.[6]
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