Review | Multimedia opera Somnium’s accessible music and compelling performances ease the strangeness of its presentation

Strobe lights pulse from a ‘moon’ while the singers’ performance of Diane Liao’s adaptation of a 1608 fantasy about a lunar journey are projected onto screens

The narration of the story is fragmented and the sensory experience unusual, but the music by Steve Hui a.k.a. Nerve is accessible and the performances strong

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A projection of the countertenor Terry Lee, who has the role of Duracotus, the son, in “Somnium”, a multimedia opera that had its world premiere in Hong Kong on October 8. Photo: Jesse Clockwork

Published: 4:15pm, 10 Oct 2022

It is Murphy’s Law that new technology fails on first night no matter how well it behaved during rehearsals.

And so it was at the premiere of the multimedia opera Somnium in Hong Kong, when the “out of battery” sign flashed and the video projection screens went dark for about an hour.

Thankfully, that was the only interruption in an otherwise slick and adventurous production described as part-installation, part-opera and part-trance.

Some pre-show idea about the story, adapted from German astronomer Johannes Kepler’s 1608 book of the same name, is useful for understanding the work’s fragmented and non-linear narration.

Steve Hui, a.k.a. Nerve, composer of “Somnium”, appears as the Daemon in the multimedia opera. Photo: Jesse Clockwork

A single mother in Iceland called Fiolxhildis, who sells herbal talismans to seafarers for a living, is reunited with her son, who has been missing for five years. She calls forth a supernatural daemon to take them on a journey to the moon.