The libretto of the opera Moonologue explores Io’s divergent identities: Io is Jupiter’s innermost moon, discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, but she is also the Greco-Roman mythological priestess after whom the moon is named. Through Galileo’s Italian (‘io’ is the Italian word for ‘I’), the various manifestations of Io are synthesized into a composite Self; a Self that thus also encompasses Galileo as well as the artists – even the audience; a Self that speaks through the Moonologue.

In Katinka Fogh Vindelev’s composition of Kølbæk Iversen’s text, she takes this blurring of identities as her starting point, which she reflects in the two voices – a male and a female voice, a countertenor and a soprano – that cross and spread each other out, beyond the singers’ cultural and biological genders. The composition
switches between recitative and abstract parts, reflecting the hybridizing, supernatural, and mythical character of the text.

Concept, text & sculptures Marie Kølbæk Iversen
Composition, performance & soprano Katinka Fogh Vindelev
Countertenor Morten Grove Frandsen

Moonologue was commissioned & premiered at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

Moonologue has been performed at
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo & Henie Onstad Museum

Moonologue was released on album via Antipyrine