On the cutting edge

The Knife's latest work is an opera inspired by Darwin - but will this evolution tempt Olof Dreijer out of the studio and on to the live stage? JIM CARROLLfinds out

AS ODD AS IT may seem at first glance, The Knife and opera go quite well together. Of course, this is not the first time that pop and opera have shared a bunkbed. There was Luciano Pavarotti's dalliances with U2 and Dolores O'Riordan, Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé's Barcelonaduet with Freddie Mercury, and Rufus Wainwright's Prima Donnaopera written for the Manchester International Festival. When pop gets notions, it looks for direction to the nearest opera house.

But while it may not have been a first, the Tomorrow, In A Yearelectro-opera does move in more enticing, mysterious ways than previous hook-ups. This is not about winning brownie points, making statements or appealing to new audiences – this is about producing a sound that hasn't been aired before.

The swell of abstract noise and space-age arias from The Knife’s Swedish siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer and their collaborators is quite intriguing and emotive. That it’s based on the life and times of evolution theorist Charles Darwin just underlines the audacity of the undertaking.

Now released as a double-album, Tomorrow, In A Yearbegan life as the soundtrack to a performance piece. Before this project, The Knife had no truck with opera. "I'd never been to one," admits Dreijer. "Opera for me stood for something very conservative which got a lot of government funding here in Sweden and took money from culture that was more exciting to me. I like the theatrical part of opera, though, because it stood for over-the-top expression."

The approach to do an opera came as the duo were considering their next move. The Knife’s last album, 2006’s Silent Shout, was the most acclaimed release of their career. Afterwards, Dreijer headed to Berlin to work on solo techno productions and his career as a DJ, while Andersson’s Fever Ray project led to one of the albums of 2009.

The catalyst for the detour to the opera house came from Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma. “They approached us about the music for this piece they were planning about Darwin,” says Dreijer. “It was more about writing the music for a performance piece with dance which they wanted to call an opera rather than a commission for an opera.

“They gave us a literature list that they wanted to base the piece on and some directions on length and structure. They wanted it to be 100 minutes in length, have three singers and written in a way which was both Victorian and contemporary.”

Preparation for the work involved Dreijer taking his first and only trip to the opera. "Yes, I went to see one opera, I saw Aida. But we really focused more on finding exciting ways to approach vocal techniques and studied contemporary composers who play around with vocal techniques. One of the singers on the album, Kristina Wahlin, is an opera singer so we talked to her about how she worked. The sound and melody had to suit her voice so we had to find a way to approach that.

“It took us some time to realise what we were about to do. It’s difficult for an opera singer too because they’re used to using the whole spectrum of their voice, while we went for a more simple approach. It was really exciting to use an opera singer in a completely different way. I think the only things in our piece that remind me of a classical opera is that we use one opera singer and that what we’ve done is a piece of work which was the original meaning of an opera.”

One huge help was the fact that Hotel Pro Forma's brief was quite an open one. They weren't, after all, looking for the new Madame Butterfly. "Hotel Pro Forma are a performance art group and one reason why we said yes to this project is because what they do is so abstract and it's very difficult sometimes to understand what they do.

“But I liked the fact that I didn’t really understand what they were doing. It felt like an interesting challenge and, as the project proceeded, I was able to grasp what they were about or I think I was able to grasp it. They’d also never worked with opera before so we were both coming from the same place.”

Initially a performance piece, the project allowed The Knife to call in some collaborators. Aside from Berlin-based electro DJ Matthew (Mt) Sims and Planningtorock’s Janine Rostron, they also enlisted Danish actress Laerke Winther and Swedish pop singer Jonathan Johansson.

“Before the approach came, we were thinking about collaborating with other people, which is why we took on Planningtorock and Mt Sims so early in this project. We’d like to do more of that in the future,” says Dreijer.

“In this case, the collaborations were necessary to capture the huge complexities you get from reading Darwin’s books. We wanted to capture different styles to match that complexity. Mt Sims has a more classical, poetic way of writing lyrics, Planningtorock has this unexpected and exciting orchestral sense and Karin’s lyrics are more contemporary and abstract. This mix was very interesting.”

Another challenge was the theme. Hotel Pro Forma’s reading list for The Knife had both Darwin’s original works and contemporary takes on his theories. “Before this, my thoughts on Darwin revolved around the political sense of his work and the way his theories became hierarchical political ideologies, like the fascist movement of the early 20th century or social Darwinism. That was my entry into his work.

“But when I started reading Darwin, I realised how misunderstood he seemed to have been, and that change in my views was really interesting. Because Sweden is so secular, his theories are not so controversial here, but I know it’s very different in other countries.”

The future for The Knife remains unplanned for now, although it’s obvious from Dreijer’s enthusiasm for the collaborative process that they will work with other musicians again. Andersson’s Fever Ray project continues to motor along – the act play this year’s Electric Picnic festival in September – and Dreijer continues to live and work in Berlin. “I DJ sometimes, a little less than before.”

He’s very proud of what his sister has achieved with Fever Ray, though it hasn’t changed his antipathy for live shows, which is probably partly responsible for the paucity of tours from The Knife to date.

“It’s great to see that we can have these independent projects,” he enthuses. “It was really good to see that Karin enjoyed playing with this band. But no, it didn’t change my views on The Knife and live shows. I’ve cocooned myself in the studio a lot more and I know I’m someone who prefers the studio to the stage.”

• Tomorrow, In A Yearis out now