Opera artists showcase women’s struggle on stage 

ANTALYA

Three artists of the Antalya State Opera and Ballet (DOB), who formed a group called Venera Ensemble, inspired by the planet Venus, which is described as the symbol of love and beauty, will stage the struggle, elegance and emotions of women throughout history.

Cellist Veronika Yeliz Efe and harpist Senem Çine, under the leadership of Antalya DOB artist mezzo-soprano Gülçin Gültekin, formed the band Venera Ensemble, which means women of Venus, one and a half years ago.

The musicians, who had to take a break from their work for a while due to the ongoing pandemic, started working again after June amid the new normal phase that calls for a restricted social life.

During rehearsals, they prepared a wide range of repertoire featuring the first love of a young woman in the Baroque age, the tears of a woman who gets cheated in France, and the feelings of a mother who laments for her son who didn’t return from a military front in Anatolia.

In these works, they perform the struggle, success, and innocence of women, the violence she faced, and moments of both joys and sorrows through different phases in history starting from the Ancient Greece period to the present day with the language of art, cello and harp.

Speaking to the state-run Anadolu Agency, Gültekin said that the group took its name from the planet Venus, which has inspired many artists from Göbeklitepe to ancient Greek culture and Mesopotamia to the Far East throughout the ages.

Stating, they chose the instrument harp to express the strong side of the woman, and violoncello to express her naive side, she said: “We show the strength, grace and beauty of the woman with the planet Venus. While we wanted to emphasize the beauty of women, we also wanted to express the troubles they experienced through art.”