''The Divine Kiss — The Evil is Always and Everywhere'' is an opera by

Constantine Koukias Constantine Koukias (born 14 October 1965) is a Tasmanian composer and opera director of Greek ancestry based in Amsterdam, where he is known by his Greek name of Konstantin Koukias. He is the co-founder and artistic director of IHOS Music Theatre ...

a Tasmanian composer and opera director of Greek ancestry based in Amsterdam, where he is known by his Greek name of Konstantin Koukias. The opera explores the imagery of the seven saving virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, faith, hope and charity.

Showcasing talents of performers with disabilities

Commissioned by Access Arts

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

and the 1998

Brisbane Festival Brisbane Festival is one of Australia's leading international arts festivals, and is held each September in Brisbane, Australia. Its presence dominates the city for three weeks in September and its line-up of classical and contemporary music, ...

, ''The Divine Kiss'' showcased the talents of performers with disabilities such as blindness and cerebral palsy. Singer in the 1999

IHOS Music Theatre and Opera IHOS Music Theatre and Opera is a Tasmanian opera company was established in Hobart in 1990, by composer and artistic director Constantine Koukias, and production director Werner Ihlenfeld to create original music-theatre and opera works. Maj ...

production in

Hobart Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...

, Janelle Colquhoun, said it was the most accommodating opera she had worked on since becoming blind. The title plays on the way disability is perceived in different cultures. According to the composer, in some cultures people with disabilities are revered as having been kissed by God, while in others their difference is perceived as bringing God’s curse on society. “At any time, it is perception alone that creates reality and defines optimism or pessimism,” says Koukias

Artistic design

In the words of the ''Brisbane News'', commenting on the Brisbane performance in 1998, " agery is all in this opera: in one scene, a giant seahorse floats amid a swarm of aeroplanes; in another a blind girl regards the starry night through an antique telescope; in another an astronaut staggers through a wall of fire and Father Christmas speaks in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

."''Brisbane News'' 2–8 September 1998, p. 3

Text

The opera is sung in modern and classical Greek, Hebrew, German and English. The text is composed of, and devised from, translations, adaptations, quotations and fragments from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible;

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...

; Herbert Maly;

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

hymnography; Stephen Hawking; The

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zho ...

by Chuang-tse; the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

; the

Divine Liturgy Divine Liturgy ( grc-gre, Θεία Λειτουργία, Theia Leitourgia) or Holy Liturgy is the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine Rite, developed from the Antiochene Rite of Christian liturgy which is that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of C ...

;

Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

; AION;

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy ( ta, ஆனந்த குமாரசுவாமி, ''Ānanda Kentiś Muthū Kumāraswāmī''; si, ආනන්ද කුමාරස්වාමි ''Ānanda Kumārasvāmī''; 22 August 1877 − 9 Septem ...

; Monoimos; The Guardian;

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

's ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

'';

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

; Paracelsus' Hermetic Formula — " Similia similibus curantur" ("Like is cured by like"); and

Job Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...

ix:20. The pre-recorded tapes for the opera were produced from numerous recordings of workshops with Access Arts members in August 1997 and April 1998 in Brisbane, Australia.

References

External links

IHOS Music Theatre and Opera webpage for ''The Divine Kiss''Access Arts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Divine Kiss, The Operas 1998 operas Multiple-language operas Operas by Constantine Koukias