On October 17, Mari Vihmand’s opera „The Formula of Love” will be premiered in Estonian National Opera. The libretto is created by Maimu Berg and Mari Vihmand after Argentinian-German writer Esther Vilar’s novel The Mathematics of Nina Gluckstein, stage director is Liis Kolle, artist Airi Eras, choreographer Ana Mondini (Brazil), music director Arvo Volmer. Opera will be performed by Estonian National Opera Symphony Orchestra and opera choir, conductors Arvo Volmer and Mihhail Gerts, Helen Lokuta and René Soom in leading roles, soloists Riina Airenne, Angelika Mikk, Janne Shevtshenko or Kristina Vähi, Juuli Lill, Andres Köster and Priit Volmer.
Vihmand’s opera „The Formula of Love” tells about the main subject of the most operas – love and death. and asks a question whether there is an infinite love and what is the formula of it. Events happen in Argentina in the end of 1950ies where popular tango-singer Chucho Santelmo gets killed in mass panic arisen during his concert. Chucho’s body is laying in the stadium’s medical centre where to his wife Nina Gluckstein arrives a bit later. After an hour, also Nina’s body will be found. She has shot herself with a silver gun which was given to her by Santelmo as a wedding present. Story about the love of Chucho and Nina is presented through the eyes of the writer Roberta Gomez Dawson.
Opera is sung in Estonian, prologue and epilogue in Spain. In addition, Ovid’s texts from „Art of Love” in Latin and Oscar Wilde’s aphorism in English is used.
Performances of „The Formula of Love” will take place in the Estonian National Opera on October 17 and 18, November 19 and 21, and April 4, 8 and 16 in 2009.
Mari Vihmand (b. 1967) has graduated from the Estonian Academy of Music as a student of Prof. Eino Tamberg and obtained master’s degree with Lepo Sumera. 1995–1997 she studied at the Lyon Conservatoire in France under Gilbert Amy and Philippe Manoury. Vihmand’s chamber opera „The Story of Glass” was premiered in 1995 at the NYYD Festival and won the Cultural Award of the Republic of Estonia in the same year. Her orchestral work „Floreo” received first prize in 1996 at the International UNESCO Composers’ Rostrum in Paris in the under-30 composers’ category.