Opera
2001
7Stages
Dance with original vocal score
Vocal score created in collaboration with soprano Wanda Baker

Opera is a dance & vocal score exploring the structural & spatial details of operatic music.

“Gabrielle O. Mertz must run a grueling rehearsal. As evidenced by last night's evening of three works by Ondine and Company, of which Mertz is director and sole choreographer, she is a perfectionist of the first order. Mertz's brand of modern is not merely one of precision. In her sculptural body constructions and movement—which is often floorbound, yet seems to flirt with gravity—virtually every toe has something interesting to do. This is particularly the case in Opera, a new trio whose final image is haunting—one dancer rolling into the wings in a tangle of arms while another swims in slow motion, her legs hovering, fluttering. This is not to say Mertz's dancers get bogged down in detail. In fact, there is a mind-boggling abundance of expression in the minimalist curl of those toes or a sharp, angled foot that sets a torso into a sideward, undulating free fall.”
The Atlanta Journal Constitution