A Chamber Opera Workshop is being organized for young composers by the Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation in 2013 to produce a jointly created opera on Sławomir Mrożek’s absurd one-act play entitled ‘Out at Sea’, which unites and addresses the predominant phenomena of the modern age (alienation, abuse of power, conformity and the question of the boundaries of freedom) in one grotesque situation, and in which the problem of part-whole relations is reflected in the possibilities of form and technique.

In April 2013 the applicants will take part in a four-day workshop where the teamwork – supervised and guided by Péter Eötvös and Luca Francesconi – will consist of discussing and deciding among the special potential options offered by the libretto, dramaturgy and composition technique. The chamber opera is to be composed for three singers and four instruments to accompany them. Without any alteration in the libretto based on Mrożek’s play written by András Almási-Tóth, each character will be created by a different 

composer in accordance with the agreements reached during the workshop. After approximately one month of independent work and ongoing consultation with the assistant professor Balázs Horváth, the composition drafts have to be submitted. In May, after reviewing these materials the professors will select six composers who are to finish their compositions by the end of August 2013.

The final scores will be published by Editio Musica Budapest. The premiere will be held on December 19, 2013 in the concert hall of the new Budapest Music Center building under the direction of Péter Eötvös and conducted by Hsiao-Lin Liao. The opera will be performed in several other European cities including Paris, Milan, Brussels and Riga in the course of 2014. The workshop and the performances will be supported by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne and the Ulysses Network.