Gaze for Gaze is an opera created by Danish composer Niels Rønsholdt in collaboration with the music- and performance ensemble Scenatet.

While thematically staying within the tragically lovestruck territory that is traditionally occupied by opera, Gaze for Gaze is, stylistically, a total reimagining of what one would traditionally expect an opera to be. Both Scenatet and Niels Rønsholdt have continuously explored different ways to tear down the traditional boundaries separating composer, performer, and audience. Gaze for Gaze is no exception.

Throughout, the text of the opera is dispersed among the members of the audience, literally blurring the lines between ensemble and audience. Moreover, the music is packed with references not only to the opera tradition but also to popular music, rendering the piece a mosaic of influences as much as it is an authorial work.

Not even the aesthetic dimensions of the opera retain their traditional roles. Rather than functioning simply as a form of visual embellishment, the elaborate and nuanced light design functions as a dramaturgical element intrinsic to the very content of the opera.

What we are left with, as Politiken wrote in a highly positive review after the world premiere of the opera in 2017, is an opera that is at once very different and very successful.

Gaze for Gaze is commissioned and produced by Scenatet and was presented at SPOR festival 2018 and at Warsaw Autumn in 2019.

Duration: 90 min

“I left the hall both stunned and excited. ‘Blik for Blik’ was both very different and very successful. Perhaps as a slow, meditative mix of traditional Japanese noh-theatre, good Danish circle pedagogy – where everyone sings according to their beak – and curious minimalist avant-garde.”

Composer and text: Niels Rønsholdt
Light design: Mikkel Larsen
Sound technician: Anders Ørbæk
Performers: Scenatet
Soloist: Daniel Gloger and Ida Urd Damm Brammning

The Danish Arts Foundation and KODA Culture