William Kentridge (CRF 1996)’s latest flipbook film and series of drawings were produced in preparation for his new opera project, Waiting for the Sibyl, which premiered at Teatro dell’ Opera di Roma in September 2019. Waiting for the Sibyl was created in response to Alexander Calder’s Work in Progress, the only operatic work created by Calder and staged at the Opera in Rome in 1968.
“I thought that the paper, the fragments of paper with which I have always expressed myself, were the right elements to start the dialogue with Calder”. In Kentridge’s mind, the floating papers immediately evoked the image of the Cumaean Sibyl, the priestess who wrote her prophecies on oak leaves. The floating papers, like loose leaves, with the prophesies written on them, are blown away by the wind.”
The book is compiled and published in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time in which it is not possible to perform the opera live. The project was undertaken in anticipation of the time when the opera can be seen in its full form again. It comprises text taken from the libretto of the chamber opera, Waiting for the Sibyl, alongside images and phrases that were projected on different size screens in the opera, sometimes in sync with the sung text, sometimes independent of any sung text.
The launch of the book accompanies Kentridge’s exhibition, City Deep, currently on view in Johannesburg by appointment.