William Kentridge | SIBYL | Barbican

Friday 22–Sunday 24 April 2022, Barbican Theatre
Press performance: Friday 22 April 2022, 7.45pm

SIBYL will be a two part event by South African artist William Kentridge, comprising The Moment Has Gone – a short film with live piano score and chorus – and Waiting for the Sibyl – a visually stunning chamber opera.

The Moment Has Gone is a short film accompanied by a live piano score and a captivating all-male South African chorus. It charts the making of City Deep, Kentridge’s latest animated film, and incorporates ideas that reappear in the second part of the evening in Waiting for the Sibyl.

Waiting for the Sibyl is a dynamic chamber opera with a full company of singers and dancers. It features signature elements of Kentridge’s visionary practice – projection, performance, music, and hand-painted backdrops. Sibyl was an ancient Greek priestess, whose readings of people’s fates often ended up in the wrong hands.

SIBYL has been created in collaboration with acclaimed choral composer and performer Nhlanhla Mahlangu and composer Kyle Shepherd, one of South Africa’s leading progressive pianists. It is performed in English, Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho and Ndebele.