Michel van der Aa’s video opera One has been released on the composer’s Disquiet Media label. Following CDs of Spaces of Blank/Mask/Imprint and Here Trilogy, One is Disquiet’s third release. In addition to a DVD release, One is also available for purchase as a standard and high resolution downloadable Quicktime video and pdf booklet through the Disquiet web store.
One was written in 2002 for the acclaimed soprano Barbara Hannigan, who stars in this recording. Accompanied only by video and an electronic soundtrack, she plays a solitary woman trapped in a cage of real and ‘captured’ time.
Voices of other women are introduced and slowly she becomes entwined in a strange and mysterious ritual. With One, the first of his three operas to date, Michel van der Aa perfected the fusion of music, text and visual images for which he has become internationally renowned.
The work has become a contemporary classic, winning the composer the Netherlands’ Mathijs Vermuelen Prize in 2004, and has been performed in twelve countries since its premiere in Amsterdam in January 2003.