DAVID MARTON / ROAD OPERA Narcisse Et Écho Music Theatre Based on Ovid
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THÉÂTRE VIDY-LAUSANNE AV. E.-H. JAQUES-DALCROZE 5 CH-1007 LAUSANNE DAVID MARTON / ROAD OPERA Narcisse et Écho Music theatre based on Ovid Vidy Creation © Lucien Strauch and David Marton Creation June 13th 2019 DAVID MARTON/ROAD OPERA NARCISSE ET ÉCHO 2 CONTACTS THÉÂTRE VIDY-LAUSANNE DIRECTION: VINCENT BAUDRILLER PRODUCTION: DIRECTOR OF ARTISTIC AND INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS CAROLINE BARNEAUD [email protected] T +41 (0)21 619 45 44 TECHNICS: TECHNICAL DIRECTION CHRISTIAN WILMART / SAMUEL MARCHINA [email protected] T +41 (0)21 619 45 16 / 81 PRESS: DIRECTOR OF AUDIENCES AND COMMUNICATION ASTRID LAVANDEROS [email protected] T +41 (0)21 619 45 74 M +41 (0)79 949 46 93 COMMUNICATION ASSISTANT PAULINE AMEZ-DROZ [email protected] T +41 (0)21 619 45 21 CreationVidy DAVID MARTON/ROAD OPERA NARCISSE ET ÉCHO 3 CreationVidy DISTRIBUTION Conception and directing: David Marton Scenography: Christian Friedländer Dramaturgy: Lucien Strauch Barbara Engelhardt Music: Paul Brody (trumpet, composition) Michael Wilhelmi (piano, composition) Daniel Dorsch (sound creation, composition) Light: Henning Streck Costumes: Valentine Solé Assistant director: Lisa Como With: Thorbjörn Björnsson Paul Brody Daniel Dorsch Vinora Epp Marie Goyette Michael Wilhelmi Production: Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne Coproduction: Wiener Festwochen - Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg, Scène européenne - Nouveau Théâtre de Montreuil - Théâtre de Caen - Les 2 Scènes, scène nationale de Besançon (in progress) With the support of: L’École de la Comédie de Saint-Étienne - DIÈSE #, Auvergne, Rhône-Alpes - Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture - Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin - Radialsystem Spectacle soutenu par LaB E23, programme Interreg France-Suisse 2014-2020 bénéficiant d’un soutien financier du FEDER. Creation June 13th 2019 at Wiener Festwochen With the production, techinal, communication and administration crews of Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne DAVID MARTON/ROAD OPERA NARCISSE ET ÉCHO 4 THE ROAD OPERA AS A METAMORPHOSIS Initially trained as a pianist at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin before becoming a musician for the likes of Frank Castorf, Árpád Schilling and Christoph Marthaler, over the last 15 years David Marton has become a leading figure in musical theatre, continuing to surprise with his formal inventiveness and ability to bring drama to the musical repertoire. He has been invited to collaborate with major German and European theatres and is sought after by European opera houses for his productions that through their mise en scène, both learned and ingenious, shake up the notions of traditional opera yet reveal the very letter, spirit and tone of the works. This was evident in Don Giovanni Keine Pause (2012), where Giovanni is a woman, the text is interspersed with quotes from the Marquis de Sade, and Mozart mixes with the jazz world. In just a few years, Marton has become one of Europe’s Read David Marton‘s portrait most unique and inspiring artists. on the Goethe Institute website - „50 contemporary German directors“ : While for the last 15 years he has been exploring the possible relationships between the David Marton various repertoires and their forms, both in opera and theatre, he is now searching for a hybrid that would lead to a lighter and more mobile form of opera – a ‘road opera’. This musical theatre, freed from the constraints of opera, has a pared-down crew and less substantial scenography, but retains the same principles of composition, mixing music, voice, text, scenography and movement. This search has led to Narcisse et Écho, a new creation that invites us to reflect on metamorphosis, inspired by Ovid. NARCISSUS AND ÉCHO OR LOVE THRU IMAGE AND SOUND Recounted in Metamorphoses by Roman author Ovid, the myths of Écho and Narcissus are linked together. Écho is a nymph who has been cursed and is condemned to repeat only the last words spoken to her. She falls in love with Narcissus, but is unable to attract him as she cannot use her own words, instead reduced to expressing herself via the sounds of others. Narcissus wearies of the nymph’s tiresome voice and discovers his own reflection in mirror-like calm waters. Fascinated, he falls in love with it. Through this image, he is drawn into a spiral of infinite self-reflection from which he is unable to escape. These two tales touch on the themes of art and love as much as they do on loneliness and the relationship with oneself. The dramatic aspect of this creation is metamorphosis – the search for a form and narrative that are continually changing, where each element transforms another, driven by five performers, singers, actors and musicians. And finally,the music will range from baroque to contemporary. It will be performed on-stage, both with period instruments and with sounds from today’s digital technology, emanating from smartphones and other objects of daily use. The movement between analogue and digital worlds will signal a journey through time, where snippets of the past are revealed, as if they were a possible future. In David Marton’s theatre, music is like a memory of the future: the insubstantial and intangible shape of human desires and hopes – such as Écho’s voice and the image of Narcissus – re-emerge from a forgotten past in an unexpected and unpredictable way. This time, it tells of a long-hoped for and endless search for love, as well as the wandering path of loneliness. ERIC VAUTRIN DRAMATURG AT THE THÉÂTRE VIDY-LAUSANNE DAVID MARTON/ROAD OPERA NARCISSE ET ÉCHO 5 A STORY OF IMPOSSIBLE LOVE Narcissus and Écho isn’t a production about selfies and narcissism but is first and foremost a love story. Écho loves Narcissus, but she has been cursed and is condemned to repeat only the last words spoken to her. Narcissus has also been punished: he is only able to love himself, and this love will never be enough. Neither of them can communicate with the other. There is no possible meeting point for them; the idea of ‘we’ is impossible. Ultimately they remain alone, unable to connect and in corresponding isolation. We wish to portray the profound loneliness of the self. The social phenomenon of narcissism, as well as of the Écho, are extreme forms of this loneliness. Although modern technological advances provide us with more and more opportunities for exchange, as well as enabling increased self-study, this loneliness is ever-present. Today we are just as alone as we were before the digital revolution. DAVID MARTON JUNE 2018 DAVID MARTON/ROAD OPERA NARCISSE ET ÉCHO 6 DAVID MARTON, OR MUSICAL THEATRICALITY Trained as a pianist, conductor and director, David Marton’s way of not simply illustrating the score, but of searching for the theatricality in the music itself and for the musicality in human behaviour, is surprising. His theatre contains the dual traces of gentle melancholy and a surrealist humour that recalls the sharp mind of Marcel Duchamp. He makes use of a playful science that gives a sense of staging and drama to the music. And so in his work, especially thanks to performers who are musicians as much as they are actors or singers, music equals text, capable of expressing a character’s innermost feelings or the hidden shape of a situation, or even the unforeseen turbulence of a narrative, while words and gestures can reveal unexpected melodic and rhythmic qualities. ‘Music is not just a means for rendering emotion in the middle of a story, but a way of understanding the world,’ he says. ‘Where staged sequences of events or the relationships between individuals organised by precise psychological rules would normally occur, music instead allows its own unique rules to appear. I believe that this is a vital step in the endless inquiry into how we should create musical theatre.’ And so Marton’s primary focus is the fundamental musicality of human beings, whose individuality and innermost feelings are expressed through sound. On stage, music and singing are tangible realities in the exploration of aspects of the human condition. And, hopes David Marton, ‘music will thus become an integral part of our existence.’ ERIC VAUTRIN DRAMATURG AT THE THÉÂTRE VIDY-LAUSANNE DAVID MARTON/ROAD OPERA NARCISSE ET ÉCHO 7 MUSIC AND COMPOSITION Music from the show will include existing works and new compositions from sound designer Daniel Dorsch, composer and pianist Michael Wilhelmi, and composer and trumpet player Paul Brody. These three artists have been working with David Marton for several years; in Munich they participated in his productions of Bellini’s La Sonnambula, and On the Road based on Jack Kerouac’s novel. Daniel Dorsch is a sound designer. He has composed music for several theatre productions, including for the Maxim Gorki Theater and the Volksbühne Berlin. Although his early studies were in classical piano and organ, in 1990 he devoted himself primarily to electronic music. He is both a producer and keyboard player in rock and pop groups (Recorder, Madonna Hip Hop Massaker, Analog Freestyle/Jazzanova). His sound installations were presented at the Seville Expo ’92, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1993, and at the Expo 2000 in Hanover. He has worked with David Marton on a number of occasions, including on Der Feurige Engel (2006) and Don Giovanni-Keine Pause (2008) at the Sophiensaele in Berlin; Die Krönung der Poppea (2010) at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg; Doppelgänger (2014) at the Staatsschauspiel Stuttgart; and on Bellini’s La Sonnambula, On the Road (based on Jack Kerouac’s novel), and Figaro Hochzeit (based on Mozart and Beaumarchais’s work) at the Münchner Kammerspiele. ▶ danieldorsch.de/projects After studying trumpet and composition at the University of Boston and the New England Conservatory, Paul Brody is today active as a designer, composer, and interpreter, in pop and classical music, theatre, and sound installations.