Opera fiXi - a bicycle opera, part Two

'Opera fiXi' tells of a time and place where the fishermen are women and the mermaids are men. Where the mermen have breasts and seaweed hair and play fishing line harps and the fishergirls wear suits of fish skin as they sail out to sea singing songs pitched at the frequency of the human heart (298.5Hz), calling to the male fish to come dive into their huge meshed nets woven from their hair and the vines of grapes.

Performed through the BRI sonic bike system that locates the music in layered fragments to spots along the river Douro, the audience is invited to a shop downtown Porto, take out a bike and go cycle riverside to the lighthouse and back, the opera's music unfolding around them through bike mounted speakers as they go.

This, part Two, plays the second half of the piece. The journey home from the lighthouse, the wind behind you, back to town.

'Opera fiXi' '(2013) was written and directed by Kaffe Matthews, made in collaboration with theatre company Visões Úteis, with location based software by Dave Griffiths. Made for Porto, it was commissioned by Serralves em Festa 2013, curated by Pedro Rocha, and ran from May 25th to June 29th daily.

'Opera fiXi’'s content is inspired by contemporary fishing, the river Douro and its water quality, the duration of an overnight fishing trip and the pollution found in the river causing male fish to turn female.

Together Matthews and VU had researched bicycle routes in Porto finding that the only cyclable path was the riverside one to the sea. This path, the river’s life within and contemporary life growing and collapsing alongside it so became the opera's score, the source for the libretto.

The libretto and twelve songs were written by Matthews except the fisherwomen songs which are adaptations from Scottish and Portuguese folk music. The lyrics were by Matthews, Carlos Costa, and Ana Vitorino(VU), with translation to Portuguese by Costa, Vitorino and VU musician, collaborator and local musical fixer João Martins.

The songs and music were performed by a choir of fisherwomen from Afurada across the river, a group of children aka the Pollution choir, a rap crew, one of Portugal’s most notorious rock singers, an opera singer, some theatre students, a digital water quality professional, an elderly man and woman who never met aka the lovers, and members of NEFUP – a group of ethnographic vocalists who also adapted fiXi lyrics to two of their folk songs extraordinary harmonies.

Fixe means cool in English but sounds fish in Portuguese. Fixe sounds fixy in English. fiXi?