Victory Over the Sun
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Justene Williams Sydney Chamber Opera, Victory Over the Sun, 2016, Performance, video, costumes, e-score, TCG023833
National Gallery of Australia

In 1913 the Russian Futurists unleashed Victory over the Sun: an opera come proto-science fiction saga of time-travelling revolutionaries. Set and costume design by Ukrainian-born artist, Kazimir Malevich, included an early version of Black Square (1915) – a painting which transformed art of the twentieth century and beyond.

The text: untranslatable. The music: lost to history. Alongside Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Victory is one of few artistic works which provoked a riot at its premiere.

The 20th Biennale of Sydney brought together Justene Williams and Sydney Chamber Opera to make a new Victory for the 21st century with costumes by Williams’ (since acquired by the National Gallery of Australia).

Victory is a work of passionate strangeness for the digital age that shows us worlds the Futurists could never have imagined. Drones soar, history collapses, and a pair of strongwomen battle over humanity's fate in a glorious dream of tomorrow.

Welcome to the new future.

(text by National Gallery of Australia)