Romeo Castellucci
The Rite of Spring
© © Allen Delaney ©
© Wonge Bergmann ©
© Wonge Bergmann ©
Conceived and directed by, Romeo Castellucci
Sound design, Scott Gibbons
Music, Igor Stravinsky
Recording, MusicAeterna, with musical direction by Teodor Currentzis
Artistic collaboration, Silvia Costa
Computer programming, Hubert Machnik
Assistant stage design, Maroussia Vaes
Lighting assistant, Marco Giusti
Technical Production Manager, Benjamin zur Heide, Georg Bugiel
Machine Builder, Christian Schubert / L58.
Collaboration Research, Istvan Zimmermann
Chief Carpenter, Darko Šošić
Lighting Board Operator, Konrad Anger
Sound Technician, Thomas Wegner
Stage Technicians, Onno Kleist, Stefanie Sändig, Ioannes Siaminos
Tour Manager, Monique Stolz
A production by Ruhrtriennale - International Festival of the Arts.// A coproduction with Manchester International Festival ; Perm State Opera ; La Villette //With friendly assistance of Instituto Italiano di Cultura Cologne. Ruhrtriennale – International Festival of the Arts is supported by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The piece was first presented on the 15th August 2014 at the Ruhrtriennale/Gebläsehalle Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord
In partnership with France Culture
One hundred years after its first tumultuous first night at the Théâtre des Champs-élysées, The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky’s musical manifesto - and Nijinsky’s choreography - has lost nothing of its overwhelming might. “It’s made for the nerves, not for the conscience. It moves on at such a pace, that in epidermic terms, it’s a bit like being electrocuted.”, says Romeo Castellucci, who wanted to “rekindle this shock effect”. But not by altering a single bar of the thirty-four minutes and a few seconds of the piece’s duration, but by revisiting the very notion of choreography. In Romeo Castellucci’s version, any “pictures of Pagan Russia” have been replaced by a dust ballet, during which movements across the stage, the interplay between between the shapes, and rhythms are controlled by the director through the use of sophisticated machinery. The powder he uses to this effect is an industrially-made one taken from ground-up bones, used as fertilizer. With its ghostly dimension, this ballet, centered on the sacrifice of the “the Chosen One”, strikes us with its echoes of the Book of Genesis: “for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” This particular Rite is preceded by a piece by Scott Gibbons, the musician who has accompanied the work of Romeo Castellucci for the last fifteen years. With the aid of high-tech scientific instruments, the American composer listens in to the rustling of atoms, plunging into the world of the infinitely small. He creates the effect of penetrating beneath the ground, into the midst of light-starved germinations, before they explode into Spring.
In the same place
Sorour Darabi, DEEPDAWN One Thousand and One Nights
Sorour Darabi, the Iranian choreographer, who has been living in France since 2013, unveils his first opera, an ambulatory performance which enables voices marginalized by ancient myths to be heard. It is a piece devised by and for committed bodies.
Trilogie Cadela Força I Chapitre I – A Noiva e o Boa Noite Cinderela
Like descending into the darkest depths of hell, Carolina Bianchi exposes the unspeakable horror of sexist violence, plunging us into a median space in which all memory becomes blurred. Following in the footsteps of the artist Pippa Bacca, she uses her own body for the purposes of the piece, thereby anchoring herself in the history of feminist performance, and casting a critical gaze upon it at the same time.
Theo Mercier Skinless
Brought to the stage by visual artist Théo Mercier, Skinless is a disenchanted Eden built on a landscape of rubbish. Amidst this XXL end-of-the-world panorama, an out of the ordinary couple loves and tears each other apart under the watchful eye of a tragic observer.
Romeo Castellucci, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustav Mahler Symphonie No. 2 “Résurrection”
Directed by Romeo Castellucci, Gustav Mahler's Resurrection symphony seems to take on all its tragic grandeur. Masterfully conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Italian director magnifies this monumental work in order bring us a funereal “song of the earth” from which nobody emerges unscathed.
Marlene Monteiro Freitas, Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon Canine Jaunâtre 3
Following on from the Portrait dedicated to her by the Autumn Festival two years ago, Marlene Monteiro Freitas hijacks the match: twenty-five virtuoso performers, each wearing the same number 3 vests, throw the score into disarray, measure themselves against the grotesque and warp the game. This show sees the eccentric choreographer passing on to the Lyon Opera Ballet a jousting match of hybrid times, a carnivalesque fresco in which the human, animal and machine have a tendency to merge.