Twelve minutes, a flash of lightning and the phrase Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae: three parameters form the starting point for exploration. Hard to believe? Time has a relationship. Klang21 enters the 2011 Pocket Opera Festival with this question and an assertion that can be interpreted in several ways.
Seven artistic teams take up the game of fixed parameters and pursue, on the level of content, the events surrounding the biblical announcement of the immaculate conception. Formally and aesthetically, exactly twelve minutes limit the scope, torn apart exactly in the middle by an inevitable lightning strike.
The phenomenon of time presents itself as a challenge in its possible interpretations: the subjectively perceived while, lavishly filled or sparingly interspersed with events; the standardised measured value in the countdown, the relentlessly uniform fall of the grains of sand in the hourglass. In addition, the symmetrical refraction of the time unit by the natural of a lightning. Unpredictable, multiform, mythologically and electrostatically charged, uncontrollable and sometimes devastating in its effects.
A defined, artificially and at the same time unpredictably structured time interval through lightning, in addition to an operatic material that should be ignited by a single movement: what at first glance may give the impression of narrowly drawn boundaries actually opens up multi-layered space for seven musical and scenic interpretations.