opera

The Curing Line

Michael Gallen

irish focus

Book now

— 6 to 26€
carte musica 13€

Performances

Sat, 26 Sep 2026

19:00
Sun, 27 Sep 2026

17:00

Cité de la musique et de la danse

Auditorium

Duration: 1:20

in english surtitled in french

What if healing were not about soothing, but about awakening? With The Curing Line, Michael Gallen imagines an opera shaped by opposing forces, where ancestral knowledge meets the urgency of an electrified present.

Through the figure of Cora — a young woman entrusted with an ancestral gift she can no longer practice — The Curing Line questions its transmission, its possible disappearance, and what becomes of a society that loses the capacity to care for itself. Around her, a collective of performers—combining acting, singing, and instrumental practice, and drawing from opera, traditional music, pop, and experimental music—brings this polyphonic narrative to life. A choir joins them on stage, giving voice to sean-nós—a highly ornamented Irish singing tradition—which Gallen interweaves with incantatory motifs, industrial sounds, and bodily pulses. A committed and compelling work in which healing becomes a matter of memory, community, and transformation.

Program

The Curing Line (2026)
french premiere

composition, direction, libretto Michael Gallen
libretto Annemarie Ní Churreáin
direction, video design Shawn Fitzgerald Ahern
set design, costume design Pai Rathaya
video design Simon Cullen
lighting design Yukiko Yoshimoto

Cast

musical director Clara Baget
soprano Amy Ní Fhearraigh, Sarah Shine
drums, french horn, trumpet, vocals Romain Bly
clarinet, bass clarinet, vocals Joséphine Besançon
double bass, electric bass, vocals Caimin Gilmore
violin, viola, vocals Maria Ryan
piano, harp, whistle, vocals Oisín Walsh-Peelo
Choeur de Chambre de l’Université de Strasbourg
chorus master Yann Lauras
performer on film Colm Breathnach, Ruth McGill, Aaron O’Hare

Winner of the FEDORA Opera Prize 2025 with the support of The Silver Company

commissioned by the Centre Culturel Irlandais
production Straymaker
coproduced by Kilkenny Arts Festival (Kilkenny, IR), Miroirs Étendus (Lille), Once Off Productions (Waterford, IR), Copenhagen Opera Festival (Copenhague, DK)
with the support of Arts Council Ireland, Creative Monaghan