Woman At Point Zero

We meet an imprisoned Egyptian woman on the night before her execution. An opera on women's rights and abuse - but most of all: abouwt a woman of extraordinary strength

Woman at Point Zero is a new opera based on the classic 1975 novel by the Egyptian writer Nawal El Sadaawi. El Sadaawi describes her meeting with Firdaus, a woman on death row in Cairo, who shares her life story the night before her execution…

Burrowing into the hidden places where fear, violence and love are tangled together, Firdaus describes how she is trapped in a vicious cycle of abuse relationships, until the moment she commits a bloody crime in self-defense. From this universal story of exploitation, erasure and the search for freedom, composer Bushra El-Turk, director Laila Soliman, writer Stacy Hardy and filmmaker Aida Elkashef create a new multimedia production that weaves together diverse creative visions and challenges conventions, to reanimate opera as a powerful voice for a new wave feminism without borders.

Intertwining lyrical poetry and genre-defying music with compelling documentary testimonies from contemporary women who committed similar acts, it presents a chorus of women’s voices — once deemed insolent, damaged, and shameful, now in the process of reclaiming and telling their own stories with wry humor, tender intimacy, and fierce freedom.

In the context of All Arias Musictheatre Festival.

Credits

composition Bushra El-Turk director Laila Soliman text based on Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi libretto Stacy Hardy video Aida Elkashef singers Nai Barghouti & Dima Orsho musical direction Kanako Abe ensemble ZAR: Hyelim Kim (taegum), Milos Milivojevic (accordion), Raphaela Danksagmuller (recorders, crumhorn, fujara, duduk, kaval), Naomi Soto (sho), Faraz Eshghi Sahraei (kamancha) & Laura Moody (cello) scenography Bissane Al Charif costumes Lies Van Assche video & light Johannes Ringoot