AIMEE BANKS, the 14-year-old soprano who burst on to the international scene last year after representing Ireland at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, will appear in Heresy, the first opera by the celebrated Irish composer, Roger Doyle.
Mystic, heretic, hermetic philosopher, spy, and playwright, Giordano Bruno was one of the renaissance’s most brilliant and controversial figures. Burned at the stake in 1600 after a nine-year trial by the Roman inquisition, Bruno envisioned a cosmos without a centre, infinite galaxies, and inhabited planets. His writings prefigured quantum theory by 350 years and influenced numerous works by Shakespeare, Molière, and James Joyce.
Heresy features episodes from Bruno’s life, with the opera presenting his system of magic memory before the court of Henry III of France, his trials in Rome and Venice before the Inquisition, prison visits by a diversity of characters from his life, and scenes of time travel as Bruno journeys among gods and the cosmos.
The opera stars Moycullen born Aimee Banks, along with Caitriona O’Leary, Daire Halpin, Jack Walsh, Morgan Crowley, and Robert Crowe. The libretto is by noted playwright Jocelyn Clarke. It is directed by Eric Fraad. It runs in the Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin, from tomorrow until Saturday November 5 at 7.30pm. Booking is through 01 - 8819613 or www.projectartscentre.ie/event/heresy
