The performance, called Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas will include opera singers and percussionists performing original work by Seattle Composer Byron Au Yong at Seahurst Park, Eagle Landing Park, Des Moines Marina, Des Moines Beach Park, and Salmon Creek Ravine.

Performers will be David Stutz and Stuart McLeod, and it’s basically an on-location opera performed at/near the water.

UPDATE: We now have a schedule, thanks to Mike Min:

• 10:30am: Salmon Creek Ravine
• 11:30am: Seahurst Park
• 12:30pm: Eagle Landing Park
• 1:30pm: Des Moines Marina (Farmer’s Market)
• 2:30pm: Marine View Park
• 3:30pm: Des Moines Beach Park

From their press release:

By taking opera out of the opera house, the Bottled Operas connect the power and beauty of traditional operatic voices with a musical experience intimately connected to nature. The site-specific performances allow Au Yong to take his music directly to places where people interact with many forms of water, creating opportunities for audience members from all walks of life to experience heightened awareness, understanding, and awe of the powerful forces of nature and humanity in a natural environment.

Percussionists play the water found at these locations with instruments that include wood, stone, bamboo, bone, rope, hide, plants, and metal. Libretti are written by eight writers from diverse cultural and artistic traditions not often represented in opera; the 64 Bottled Operas will be anything but a traditional operatic experience.

Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas will be performed by opera singer/water percussionist duos in rivers, lakes, fountains, ravines, and other waterways as part of 4Culture’s Site-Specific Performance Network on August 4, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 26, and 28.

4Culture Site-Specific Performances are FREE to the public.

Byron Au Yong creates ceremonial musical events for voices with Asian, European and hand-made instruments. His works have been performed in Canada, China, England, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Local projects include Piao Zhu: Flying Bamboo created for the Seattle Asian Art Museum and YIJU: Songs of Dislocation presented at the Jack Straw New Media Gallery. Au Yong was the only American selected for the Jerwood Opera Writing Programme where his mini-opera The River Museum was performed at Aldeburgh Music.

Performance Schedule available online at hearbyron.com and sitespecificarts.org.

NOTE: If you miss this on-location local performance, you can still see Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas at Bumbershoot in two weeks (full details here).

Here’s a musical taste of some of Au Yong’s work:

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