Music theatre (2015)
After seven cantatas by Hanns Eisler
based on texts by Ignazio Silone (1937)
and Enfonçures by Didier-Georges Gabily (1991)
Tenor Johan Viau
Actress Laurence Cordier
Secession Orchestra
Clarinets Hughes Soualhat, Bertrand Laude
Viola Thomas Bouzy
Cello Dima Tsypkin
Musical Direction Clément Mao-Takacs
Stage Direction Aleksi Barrière
Lighting Design Étienne Exbrayat
Duration: 60′
Performances on 17, 21 and 23 November, 2015 at the Théâtre Adyar in Paris.
« Wherefore poets in times of distress? »
These words written by Friedrich Hölderlin just before retiring from both the world and history feel more topical than ever in our troubled times. We are off to meet the poet, weary from singing the praise of revolutions, in his secret exile, guided by a young woman who will not give up believing in change.
Director Aleksi Barrière and conductor Clément Mao-Takacs have created together a form between music and theatre, uniting cantatas written in exile by Hanns Eisler on texts by dissident Communist writer Ignazio Silone, and Enfonçures, an ‘oratorio-material’ by playwright Didier-Georges Gabily.
From the Europe of Fascisms to the Gulf Wars, between propaganda and attempts to restore a meaning to words, these forgotten masterworks will be in discussion through the confrontation of a tenor and an actress on an exiled stage. Fables and testimonies are blended in a performance that questions the artists’ and the audience’s ability to grasp the world, and their wonderful and desperate ambition of transforming it.
