Opera for a Small Room 2005R. Dennehy lived most of his life in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada. Not a lot is known about him, but he is listed in the telephone book as Royal Dennehy. One thing we do know is that he once collected opera records. He was infatuated with great tenors. We are aware of these facts because we bought all his records (which were signed at the top) at the second-hand store in Salmon Arm. There were approximately one hundred records. We are interested in the extreme cultural juxtaposition between opera and the small western town in which R. Dennehy lived. What did he think about while listening to these records, recorded in cities half-way around the world? Was he a trained singer? Did he want to have a career in opera? Did he lose a lover and find solace in the music? Did he dream of traveling to faraway opera houses one day? We imagined him singing along to the records, creating his own opera, displaced in time and space. So we made a small room for the opera of his life. There are twenty-four antique loud speakers out of which come songs, sounds, arias, and occasional pop tunes. There are almost two thousand records stacked around the room and eight record players which turn on and off robotically syncing with the soundtrack. The sound of someone moving and sorting albums is heard. A shadow occasionally moves across the back wall when the music changes as if there is an invisible DJ not content to listen to one full song. The man's voice is projected out of a megaphone: "In the middle of the stage a man sits alone in a room filled with speakers, amplifiers and records". His use of stage directions reinforces the illusion that he is a man alone, trying to create a dramatic world for himself. The audience cannot enter the room. To see and hear his world, they have to look through windows, holes in the walls, and cracks in the doorways. Colored lights sequence around the room, coming on and off, fading up and down, pulsing to emphasize the mood and beat of the music. Through the use of lighting, the piece shifts in feeling from a nostalgic setting of an old attic room to that of a night club or theater stage. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, "Opera for a Small Room" in Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller: The Secret Hotel, Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2006
Lost in the Memory Palace | Opera for a Small Room