Kosmopolis 21

Talk and performance

Maria Arnal, José Luis de Vicente i Eduard Escoffet amb la participació d’Eulàlia Fantova

A Thousand Sibyls

Liturgies of the Anthropocene

  • Wednesday 16 June, 21.30 - 22.30
  • Pati de les Dones

⚠ For reasons beyond the control of the CCCB, this event has been cancelled and we will contact the people who have tickets. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

From Delphos to Mallorca, from one side of the Mediterranean to the other, the Sibyl’s voice has come through the centuries warning humans of the inevitability of the end and announcing the rebirths to come. This prophecy of the apocalypse, sung in Latin and Catalan, has known epochs of splendour and ostracism. What does it mean when a piece of music has been handed down from generation to generation over a millennium? Why was this rite persecuted and why did we decide to revive it at the beginning of the new millennium?

In this performative conference, in which they are accompanied by the mezzosoprano Eulàlia Fantova, Maria Arnal, José Luis de Vicente, and Eduard Escoffet will entwine their voices with images and texts, exploring the stories hiding behind the fascinating thousand-year-old figure that is the Sibyl. Starting from the mystical, philosophical, and feminist dimensions of this extraordinary pagan rite, they will gradually disclose their project to adapt the Song of the Sibyl to the twenty-first century in CLAMOR, the second album of Maria Arnal and Marcel Bagés. How should the Song of the Sibyl be performed in the Anthropocene Age, in a context of ecological crisis and the emergence of artificial intelligence and non-human voices?