Denis and Katya are a contemporary cross between Romeo and Juliet and Bonnie and Clyde. The two were thwarted in their crush, and the two Russian 15-year-olds promptly ran away from home. They hid in a country house, got drunk, shelled the street and the rushing police and died. They shared the days-long process via chat and livestream – applauded and excited, both in brutality and despair. This ‘true crime story‘ from 2016 was the basis of the prize-winning short chamber opera Denis & Katya by British composer Philip Venables.
For the Opera Forward Festival, De Nat. Opera Denis & Katya, previously successful at more opera houses. A row of empty seats emphasizes more than just the width of the stage, four cellists are the entire orchestra with singing melodies, wrought-up pizzicati and frantic rumbles on the c-string. An important finding for the very high tempo of the performance is the whatsapp conversation between composer and librettist shown on screen: a making off along which the story unfolds in multiple perspective. Singers Michael Wilmering and Inna Demenkova (member of the opera studio) take on completely convincing different guises: from journalist to neighbor who experienced it to best friend. In this way you are handed puzzle pieces until the picture is complete – and the story is over.
Denis & Katya stimulates thinking: about opera and about social media and its impact. That the original footage has not been used is good: the real images make empathy more difficult.
The high tempo, the electronic amplification, the keyboard sounds during chatting and the electronic beeps that emphasize the hard cut montage: composer Venables and librettist Ted Huffman make the stress of Denis and Katya and the panting of the digital present tangible.
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It becomes tragic and calmer after both deaths – when suddenly video images have been added. We see endless birch forests and impoverished industrial areas around the town of Pskov, where Denis and Katya were not allowed to be buried in one grave. Denis’s best friend dreams of living somewhere else. “We see so much, the world is a constant theatre,” he says. Opera cannot get much more topical.