Christoph Marthaler
Bekannte Gefühle, gemischte Gesichter
© Walter Mair ©
© Walter Mair ©
Directed by Christoph Marthaler
With Hildegard Alex, Tora Augestad, Marc Bodnar, Magne Håvard Brekke, Raphael Clamer, Bendix Dethleffsen, Altea Garrido, Olivia Grigolli, Ueli Jäggi, Jürg Kienberger, Sophie Rois, Ulrich Voss, and Nikola Weisse
Dramaturgy, Malte Ubenauf, and Stefanie Carp
Music, Tora Augestad, Bendix Dethleffsen, and Jürg Kienberger
Sound, Klaus Dobbrick
Lighting, Johannes Zotz
Set and costumes, Anna Viebrock
A Volksbühne Berlin production with support from Ruhrtriennale – Festival der Künste
In association with La Villette – Grande Halle (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
First performed on 21st September 2016 at Volksbühne Berlin
In partnership with France Inter
Devised in 2016 in conjunction with the departure of Frank Castorf after twenty years at the head of the Volksbühne in Berlin, this new work by Christoph Marthaler is a meditation on the passage of time and the way it transforms us, inexorably.
It was Montaigne who once wrote “I do not paint its being, I paint its passage”. This could well be the motto for this Bekannte Gefühle, gemischte Gesichter (“Familiar faces, mixed feelings”) in which the performers, emerging from enormous wooden boxes, take on the appearance of works of art leaving a warehouse where they might have been in storage for several years. It comes as no surprise, thus, that the stage design, by Anna Viebrock, reconstitutes a museum space. As is always the case in shows by Christoph Marthaler, his faithful team of actors and actors have something of the sophisticated retro about them – taking us back to somewhere between the 1950’s and the 1970’s. With the exception of one notable difference: this temporal disparity lies at the very heart of the play in that it looks into the way in which time has changed these characters. What is left of them after all these years? Are they still true to themselves? Have they become museum pieces? Are they ghosts from the past? They try to reply to these questions in whatever way they can, through words and especially music. From Mozart to Boby Lapointe, via Verdi, Handel and Schubert en route, they deliver up a moving, hilarious look at the world of appearances, in which sensitivity and humour turn out to be an excellent elixir for transcending melancholy.
––––––
Running time : 2h10
Performed in German with French subtitles
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.