Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber’s choreography of Cassandra Miller’s viola concerto I cannot love without trembling for GöteborgsOperans Danskompani has been lauded by the Swedish press. Their new work appeared as part of the double bill Dusk till Dawn (3-27 April 2025) alongside Crystal Pite’s Frontier. Watch a clip from rehearsal here.
Smith and Schraiber’s new work depicts the relentless force that makes people fight to keep hope alive despite their own fragility: in a dance between vulnerability and strength, people do everything they can to avoid becoming numb and remain open to life. It was lit by David Stokholm and designed by Christian Friedländer.
…a fascinating metamorphosis of dance and music in an urban landscape of folkloric elements…smart and passionate…
Aftonbladet (Liv Landell Major) 7 April 2025
…raw, romantic and fragile…The focus is on viola player Emil Jonasson, who remains among the dancers and draws out such melancholy, fragile notes that all the senses are sharpened. The ensemble's movements become softer, bare feet now rocking in rhythm. The viola speaks to their inner selves…an incredibly beautiful and moving dialogue.
Svenska Dagbladet (Anna Ångström) 4 April 2025
…there is a desire to say something about both love…and the world today…art can do little more than tremble and tremble.
Dagens Nyheter (Josefine Wikström) 7 April 2025
…the ten dancers jump and rush, catch each other, and slow down. Everything is intense, with the body at the center. Violence and tenderness are neighbors.
Göteborgs-Posten (Lis Hellström Sveningson) 7 April 2025
The music…is striking and exposed. The lone soloist, brittle viola tone and the orchestra's soothing, vibrating, trembling, mournful sounds, resonated with the seriousness of the dance...a powerful experience that lingers and cuts deep.
BoBorg.se 6 April 2025
I cannot love without trembling was performed live by the Göteborg Opera Orchestra, conducted by Nathan Brock, with Emil Jonasson and Franziska Wenzel alternating as soloists.
The 25-minute work takes its title from the writings of Simone Weil and draws on the music-making of Epirot violinist Alexis Zoumbas, who left his mountainous homeland in Greece for the United States. Recordings of his improvised, lamenting moiroloi, the funeral music associated with the women of Epirus, is another creative impetus for the work. It is cast in one unbroken span with five sections: four verses with a concluding cadenza), each one titled after a quotation from Weil. Writing in The New Yorker, Alex Ross commented of the piece, “The atmosphere of lamentation is engulfing…you could hear the work as one more apocalyptic lullaby for an anxious age…This is music that reminds us how to cry.”