Strong women from Byzantium to the present

At their Beethovenfest 2025 concert, the Sjaella vocal ensemble will focus on the stories of three powerful women. Circe, Giselle and Kassia have more in common than you might initially think. In this dialogue, soprano Viola Blache and contralto Felicitas Erben discuss the creative power of women, the fountain of youth, and utopias.

First of all, congratulations on your twentieth anniversary — you’ve known each other for half a century! What does it take for an ensemble to stay together for such a long time?

Viola Blache: A lot! It takes commitment, freedom, and trust. You have to keep deciding to give everyone the freedom to try different things to find inspiration and fulfilment. You also need to trust that all of this will flow back into the group.

Felicitas Erben: The core element that we always return to is joint creation: making music together, development, and artistic research. This is also our fountain of youth as a group, keeping our relationships fresh and healing the cracks that naturally form over time.

Your concert at the Kreuzkirche will celebrate three women from mythology, ballet and history. Is this a deliberate composition?

Viola: The world premiere of »What Would Circe Do?« by Australian composer Wally Gunn took centre stage. Felicitas wrote the text about the sorceress from Greek mythology herself. Then we asked ourselves: what should we associate this piece with? Ultimately, we decided that the most powerful approach would be to bring these female characters together and give them a voice to showcase their diverse qualities.

Felicitas: Exactly! Of course, in recent years, we have increasingly focused on working with female composers for new compositions, as was the case with »Giselle«. Laura Marconi wrote this piece a few years ago for a ballet production at the Leipzig Opera. (A brief impression here.) We would like to give it a new context at Beethovenfest.

You mentioned the world premiere of »What Would Circe Do?« This piece, written by Wally Gunn, was commissioned for this year’s Beethovenfest. How did the collaboration come about?

Viola: We got to know Wally Gunn on our first tour of Australia three years ago. We just clicked as people and got on really well!

And how did the mythological theme come about?

Viola: Wally came to Leipzig, and we spent hours discussing the Beethovenfest motto, »Alles ultra«, and chatted and thought over coffee and cake all day. What does that mean for us? That actually led us more and more in the direction of mythology. This was especially the case when we stumbled across Beethoven’s »Prometheus« ballet. In mythology, there is a brief moment when Circe and Prometheus meet while he is tied to the rock, being punished for giving people fire. That’s where it all started! We asked ourselves, »What if Prometheus had asked Circe, a natural healer and sorceress, for advice?« What would it take to reach people and refocus their attention on the essentials?

You join the figures Circe and Giselle with the Byzantine composer Kassia. What links these three women, and what links you to them?

Felicitas: The answer can be found in the title of our programme: »The Thriving Principle«. It is the thriving principle that enables growth even in dry soil and flourishes despite headwinds. Developing the strength to break free from oppression or regimentation is what unites women. This doesn’t just affect the six women on stage, but every single woman in the audience too.

Viola: Exactly. The three women are united by the fact that they don’t fit into their respective social systems. However, they define themselves, develop courage, and demonstrate creative agency, which is exactly what we want to focus on with our concert.

Felicitas: Women are, in many ways, an incredibly fast-learning and adaptable gender. This principle of ›exploding with power‹ is expressed anew from generation to generation, and it cannot be stopped.

Fittingly, »Alles ultra« is the motto of this year’s Beethovenfest, which provides ample opportunity to question the habits of the classical music scene. What developments would you like to see for musicians and their performances in future?

Felicitas: I would like to see more variety and context on the classical stage. I want to see the courage to comment musically, verbally or visually on the time, the content of the music or the composer — after all, they were mostly men. I want to hear something new: Many men have composed wonderful music, but we should bring it into a contemporary context and incorporate new thoughts and perspectives!

Viola: I would like to see more solutions to problems. I want to see more utopias and for them to be given more space, because they are so important in art. To me, utopias are not just confused dreams; they can be the breeding ground for concrete ideas for action.

Thank you very much for the interview. I wish us all more utopias, and I am looking forward to the concert on 25 September 2025 in the Kreuzkirche!