Recently the New York Times, Observer and BWW carried reviews of a new one-act opera “The Echo Drift” premiere at Baruch Performance Art Center. Why do we mention it in our Estonian Newspaper? But of course, it is because of Elle Kunnos De Voss.
Elle was born in Sweden. Her parents were Dr. Viiu Kriisa Kunnos and architect Gustav Kunnos. Elle has studied at Copenhagen Art Institute and also for a year in Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn. She speaks fluent Estonian. Almost ten years ago, Elle moved to New York and started to do interior design for restaurants. She won a worldwide award for her design work from China. She later married her friend from Copenhagen, Felix DeVoss, who, by the way, did the renovation design for bathrooms and lower hall in the New York Estonian House.
Here are some excerpts from what the newspaper reviews have said about her recent work regarding “The Echo Drift”.
From New York Times: “The story, though, is the least interesting element of “The Echo Drift,” which has a libretto by Elle Kunnos de Voss and Kathryn Walat. Directed by Mallory Catlett and conducted by Nicholas DeMaison in its world premiere at the Prototype festival, the production puts music, by Mikael Karlsson, on an equal footing with design, seeking multidimensionality on both fronts. Stark and intricate, propulsive and a little film-noir, “The Echo Drift” is most exciting when it is fast and cacophonous, nearly overwhelming the senses.
BWW Review: the time you read this, another year’s edition of PROTOTYPE – New York’s two-week festival of new opera-theatre/music-theatre works different from most anything you’ve ever seen before–will be gone and it was another to be grateful for. The last event on my list was a totally original and stunning, immersive piece called THE ECHO DRIFT, with a scintillating score composed by Mikael Karlsson, and a brilliant environmental production by Elle Kunnos de Voss in their first collaboration.
The storytellers – in addition to Karlsson and de Voss, there’s co-librettist Kathryn Walat, with direction by Mallory Catlett and projection design by Simon Harding and lighting design by Christopher Kuhl – incorporate animated visuals (thousands of them by Kunnos de Voss) and surround-sound to relate the story of how Loats bides her time until the release that she is convinced is on its way. THE ECHO DRIFT was commissioned, developed and produced by Beth Morrison Projects. It was originally developed by Karlsson and Kunnos de Voss in a fulllength workshop presented in 2014 by the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC.
To read the full story:
