Heloiza (and Abelard)

The new opera by two renowned Slovenian artists, librettist Milan Dekleva and composer Peter Kopač, is dedicated to the life of the French medieval scholastic philosopher, teacher, theologian, composer and poet Peter Abelard (1079–1142) and his life companion Héloise d'Argenteuil – a nun, philosopher, writer, scholar and abbess. The story of Heloise (and Abelard) is brough to life by four vocalists and the Chamber Ensemble of the Slovenian Chamber Music Theatre.

Abelard was known for his conceptualist and ethical view of the world and medieval society. Composer Peter Kopač understood Abelard's perception of the world from the perspective of conceptualism as an emphasis on concepts and ideas existing within the experience of the individual, and ethics as a philosophical discipline dealing with the problem of morality or immorality, and translated it into a contemporary minimalist opera adapted to our modern times and audiences.
 

Composer Peter Kopacˇ (1949) graduated in composition and piano from the Ljubljana Academy of Music with Lucijan, Marija Škerjanc and Uroš Krek. The composer's output mainly includes chamber and solo music, over the last few years he has also written symphonic music. He forged his own unique creative path, seeking new expressive possibilities but with the use of existing aesthetically selected sonic material, from pentatonic, chromatic and whole-tone scales to archaic modes, and using modified versions of established forms such as sonata form and variations.

His works have been performed in Europe, (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Lithuania), the US (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Seattle, Iowa, Washington D.C., Albuquerque), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), China (Beijing), Russia (Moskva) and Iran (Tehran). 

Throughout his professional career, Peter Kopač mainly taught at the Music School in Škofja Loka, where he resides. The composer is actively involved in the Society of Slovenian Composers (DSS) as a member of the Board of Directors, editor-in-chief of DSS editions, and from 2007 to 2017 also as artistic director of DSS Chamber Nights. On the occasion of the composer's 70th birthday, a concert of his chamber works was held in his native Jesenice and in Škofja Loka with renowned Slovenian musicians. In recent years, he has worked prolifically, focusing on orchestral works: Koncert za orgle in orkester (Organ Concerto, 2019), Simfonija (Symphony, 2021).