An Index of Metals (2003) is the last work by Italian composer Fausto Romitelli. He did not live to see the triumph of this piece after his untimely death in 2004. There is no narration in this “video opera.” The text by Croatian poet Kenka Lekovich is not a libretto, but a series of “songs” that she calls “Hellucinations”. Also, the singer does not stand on stage, but is integrated into the ensemble. The abstract stage action takes place exclusively in three large video projections designed by Paolo Pachini. The composer emphasizes that the work is “freed from all the artifices of [traditional] opera.” Although there is no real plot, there is a development, and this development is downward. An Index of Metals is a fantasy of doom, sensual and violent at the same time.

Ever since the resounding success of the Professor Bad Trip trilogy (1998–2000), Romitelli has been considered an expert on everything intoxicating and dystopian. He is particularly interested in the intoxication by “trash,” a hallmark of late capitalist consumer societies. He particularly brands the seemingly omnipotent media and entertainment industry as despicable. He shares the view of his fellow countryman Pier Paolo Pasolini, who states that the daily

bombardment with media trash is nothing less than “cultural genocide.”

Romitelli’s compositional approach is very physical. He targets our bodies, bypassing emotion or intellect. He admires the physical presence of Pink Floyd’s psychedelic rock, the instrumental power of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar playing, and other popular musical phenomena,especially from the underground scene. In contrast, he describes most contemporary music styles as sterile, exclusively intellectual, and therefore superfluous. For Romitelli, the decisive element of his music is “the sound”, “il suono.” Sound is the starting point and goal, a material to be “forged” like metal. The listener is thrown into the middle of this blast furnace, brought to white heat, deformed, twisted, and finally liquefied.

In my talk, I will give an introduction to Romitelli’s aesthetics, with special focus on An Index of Metals. Using concrete examples, I will show how Romitelli creates his intoxicating effects. The focus will be firstly on spectral techniques, which he learned in the late 1990s at IRCAM in Paris, and secondly on loops. Romitelli makes full use of the ritualistic and hypnotic effect of such circular repetitive structures. In particular, he works with loops in which the sound undergoes gradual transformations. These sound spirals often start out quite innocently, only to inevitably descend into disaster.