Saturday 12 March 2016

L'Autre Hiver - Phantasmagoric Opera at Teatro Maria Matos, Lisboa - The 11th of March 2016



I have been to see l'Autre Hiver by Dominique Pauwels and Denis Marleau inspired on the rather turbulent relationship between the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine and though I was expecting it to be exquisite taking into account the names of those involved in the production of such a Teatrical project  I must confess I wasn't expecting it to be so "confusing" as far as the text approach goes.


There were moments of absolute beauty, particularly when poetry was the master of the whole scenery  and the animated faces of the  puppet figures spread on stage were lit up or eventually dimmed, as in accordance with the depth of what was being said.

  
Rimbaud's "Je est un autre" opened up the scene before we gradually got acquainted with the soprano singers who played the roles of the poets and who brilliantly brought the whole dramatic sequences forth as they wandered back and forth on the deck of a ship at sea, whose movement was made real by projecting sea images onto the background, together with a magestic live orchestra one could barely see among the dark and light stage projection whose melodic approach created the ever changing surounding atmosphere.




































I have to confess I have mixed feelings regarding it and can't therefore say I liked or didn't like it, once there were a few rather magic moments and a few others I didn't quite grasp and even felt rather incomfortable with. The whole team should nevertheless be praised because it was clear from what the audience saw that their creative production was huge. 




Dominique Pauwels - music and sound instalation
Normand Chaurette - libreto
Denis Marleau and Stéphanie Jasmin - Art direction, scene setting and video design


Musiques Nouvelles 
Laurent Houque - violin
Karel Coninx - viola
Jean-Pol  Zanutel - cello
Berten D'Hollander - flutes
Cédric Debruycker - clarinets
André Ristic - piano

Filip Rathé - orchestra conductor
Lieselot De Wilde - soprano singer (playing the role of Arthur Rimbaud)
Marion Tassou - soprano singer (playing the role of Paul Verlaine)

Eric Soyer - light design
Greta Goiris and Judith Stockart - costume design
Pierre Laniel - video setting
Claude Rodrigue and Ana Solal - pupetry mask design and sculpting











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