
Alessandro Averone (standing), Fulvio Pepe, Giovanni Visentin, Luca Iervolino, and Carlo Bellamio in Peter Stein's production of Dostoyevsky's The Demons. Photo Andrea Boccalini.
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will run from JULY 7 to July 25
10 premieres and debuts, 45 performances over 18 days
Governors Island to be site of two theatre rresentations: North American Premieres of The Demons, a 12-hour Marathon by Peter Stein based on Dostoyevsky’s Novel, and North of Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s production of Teorema after Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Film and Novel
Varèse: (R)evolution, the complete works featuring Maestro Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Led by Steven Schick; So Percussion; Bass-baritone Alan Held; and Others
Celebrated Directors Simon McBurney and Yukio Ninagawa Return With New Works
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray and New York Premieres by Choreographers Saburo Teshigawara and Pichet Klunchun
Master Puppet theatre Artist Rezo Gabriadze’s Ermon and Ramona (North American Premiere) Salvatore Sciarrino’s Chamber Opera, La porta della legge, Based on Kafka Text (U.S. Premiere)
The Blind Boys of Alabama Curate a Three-Concert Series Featuring Dr. Ralph Stanley, Yo La Tengo, Aaron Neville, Hot 8 Brass Band, Joan Osborne and Others
Voodoo/funk group Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou From Benin (U.S. Debut) and Serbian Rock/punk Group, Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra (U.S. Debut)
There has already been a lot of talk about the wonderful things to come at the Lincoln Center Festival next year. The Cleveland Orchestra will begin a biennial four-day residency in New York, where, as their recent concert under Maestro Franz Welser-Möst showed, they have a large and enthusiastic following. They will not be taking this lightly. Their four concerts will feature symphonies 5, 7, 8, and 9 of Anton Bruckner, and Welser-Möst will be teaching a master class on Bruckner at Juilliard.
Even more exciting is the five-week residency of the Royal Shakespeare Company (July 6-August 14, 2011). In a replica of the Courtyard Theatre, an intimate thrust-stage design intended to bring audiences and the players closer together they will perform five plays from their current repertoire: Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and The Winter’s Tale. In this way New York audiences will enjoy an unprecedented opportunity to become familiar with the current style of the most important Shakespeare company in the world in some depth.
This should not make anyone blasé about the significance and power of the Lincoln Center Festival’s 2010 program, and it is clear that this is not the case, to judge by the fact that Peter Stein’s marathon production of Dostoievsky’s The Demons has been more than sold out for some time,. (As far as I know tickets are still available for the other events.) The lively combination of theatre, music, and dance and the far-ranging internationalism of the programming make the Lincoln Center Festival an unmatchable New York resource. Last year’s festival was dominated by a group of major theatre companies from Central and Eastern Europe. I only saw two of these myself, a brilliant production of Chekhov’s Ivanov by the Katona József theatre of Budapest, and an absorbing adaptation of Thomas Bernhard’s Kalkwerk by the Narodowy Stary Teatr of Cracow. This was one of the company’s seminal productions in the early 1990’s. Aside from the intrinsic power of this long mood-piece, the audience got a look at an important moment its development into what it is today.
This year’s program is more diffuse, which is hardly intended as a criticism. It is all the stronger for its wide range, as keen as I am on Slavic theatre.
Nigel Redden, Director of the Lincoln Center Festival announced the Festival’s line-up, which includes ten North American, U.S., and New York premieres, and debuts. The Festival will unfold in seven venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus, including two major theatre events on Governors Island—the North American premiere of Peter Stein’s 12-hour marathon production of Dostoyevsky’s The Demons (also known as The Possessed) and the North American premiere of Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s production of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s searing Teorema, adapted and staged by Ivo van Hove. A Festival highlight will be performances of the complete works of Edgard Varèse by Alan Gilbert and The New York Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), led by Steven Schick, and other musicians and singers. The Festival also boasts the U.S. premiere of Yukio Ninagawa’s lavish production, Musashi (which opens the Festival on July 7), based on a legendary samurai story, and the New York premiere of Complicite’s Olivier Award-winning A Disappearing Number, conceived and directed by Simon McBurney, in the David H. Koch theatre. In all there will be 45 performances by artists and ensembles from 12 countries. Mr. Redden said, “Over the years the Festival has earned a reputation for introducing audiences to performances they would not be able to see under normal circumstances in New York. This year, we are working in an exciting space uniquely suited for Peter Stein’s adaptation of The Demons and Ivo van Hove’s searing adaptation of Teorema—an industrial warehouse on Governors Island, only ten minutes from Lower Manhattan but, in feeling, a world apart and one that captures the imagination. It is also extremely gratifying to work once again with our Lincoln Center colleagues the New York Philharmonic, this time with Maestro Alan Gilbert, on the Varèse series.”
More about the programs, in detail:
Theatre
The Festival continues its tradition of presenting outstanding theatre from around the world, this year with productions from The Republic of Georgia, Great Britain, Holland, Italy, and Japan:
● July 7: Opening the Festival will be the U.S. premiere of Hisashi Inoue’s Musashi in a new production at the David H. Koch theatre by legendary Japanese theatre director Yukio Ninagawa, who made his Festival debut in 2005 with his production of Mishima’s Modern Noh Plays. Musashi is a Noh-inspired play that depicts a ruthless hunt for revenge circa 1600 between two samurai, combining intense drama and riotous comedy, starring Tatsuya Fujiwara and Ryo Katsuji. Musashi continues through July 10, for four performances. Performed in Japanese, with English supertitles.
● July 10 and 11: the Festival moves to Governors Island for the first time for the North American premiere of Peter Stein’s 12-hour marathon production of The Demons, his own adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s prophetic 1872 novel inspired by a vision of Russia collapsing under the weight of conflicting ideologies. Performed in Italian (with English supertitles) by a cast of 26 actors, the action of The Demons explores the consequences of a plot by a group of young revolutionaries to murder one of their own comrades.
● July 15-19: Performances on Governors Island continue with the North American premiere of Teorema by Toneelgroep Amsterdam—an adaptation of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s shocking and ambiguous novel and film that follow the unraveling of a middle-class family after a mysterious stranger visits and changes their lives forever. Adapted and directed by Ivo van Hove, Teorema will be performed in Dutch with English supertitles.
● July 15-18: Simon McBurney and Complicite return for their fourth Festival visit with their Olivier Award-winning A Disappearing Number, a meditation on what is permanent and what disappears forever, inspired by the collaboration of two of the 20th century’s most important pure mathematicians, G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, in the David H. Koch theatre.
● July 20-25: Rezo Gabriadze and his magical Georgian puppet theatre return to the Festival with Ermon and Ramona, the story of an improbable love affair between a locomotive and a shunting engine in Soviet Russia. Ermon and Ramona will be presented at the Clark Studio theatre. Performed in Georgian with English supertitles.
The diverse group of music presentations for Lincoln Center Festival 2010 ranges from voodoo/funk from the African nation of Benin and a celebration of The Blind Boys of Alabama, to Serbian rock/punk, the complete works of Varèse, and a new opera by Salvatore Sciarrino.
● July 11: U.S. debut of the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, the voodoo/funk sensation from the African nation of Benin that has wowed audiences throughout Europe with its Afro-infused psychedelia and James Brown-influenced rhythms, in the Gerald W. Lynch theatre.
● July 12, 14 and 16: a three-night series in Alice Tully Hall curated by the seminal group The Blind Boys of Alabama, soul gospel veterans who have been deeply influential across many popular genres. The Blind Boys will perform at all three events, starting with an opening night concert with artists who are associated more with rock than gospel: Yo La Tengo and Yim Yames of My Morning Jacket. On July 14, the focus shifts to country music, with performances by Yonder Mountain String Band, Ralph Stanley, Ray Benson and Jason Roberts of Asleep at the Wheel. The final evening, The Blind Boys Family Revival, will feature songs from all of the group’s Grammy Award-winning albums and include duets with Aaron Neville, Joan Osborne, Hot 8 Brass Band, Dan Zanes, John Hammond, and Charlie Musselwhite, among others.
● July 14: At Avery Fisher Hall, Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra, the Serbian rock/punk group that attracts enthusiastic audiences all over the world to its infectious, energetic live performances, makes its first stateside tour. Inspired by the Sex Pistols and The Clash, The No Smoking Orchestra plays its own unique blend of rock, folk, gypsy, and world music, mixed with political satire and surrealist comedy.
● July 19 and 20: The Festival presents the complete works of composer Edgard Varèse, “the father of electronic music,” over two nights—July 19 in Alice Tully Hall; July 20 in Avery Fisher Hall—featuring the New York Philharmonic led by its Music Director, Alan Gilbert; International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), led by Steven Schick, So Percussion; bass-baritone Alan Held; soprano Anu Komsi; Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society (Kent Tritle, Chorus Master); and others.
● July 20, 21, 22: The North American premiere of La porta della legge, an opera based on a story by Franz Kafka by leading Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino (who returns to the Festival for the third time), performed by Wuppertal Opera and Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal, will be presented at the Gerald W. Lynch theatre. Performed in Italian with English supertitles.
Three acclaimed dancer/choreographers return to the Festival:
● July 9-11: Groundbreaking dancer-choreographer Saburo Teshigawara, who last appeared at the Festival with his mesmerizing Bones in Pages in 2006, presents his newest solo work, Miroku, in the Rose theatre.
● July 15-17: Choreographer Bill T. Jones’ nationally-acclaimed Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray, performed by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. This full-evening company work, a Lincoln Center 50th Anniversary co-commission, investigates the many meanings of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, the U.S. President and the man. It will be performed at the Rose theatre.
● July 24-25: Thailand’s Pichet Klunchun Dance Company performs Chui Chai, an exquisite dance work that showcases choreographer Pichet Klunchun’s distinctive merging of traditional Thai classical dance and contemporary movement. Klunchun previously appeared in Festival 2006, dancing in, and choreographing Ramakien: A Rak Opera. Chui Chai will be performed at the Gerald W. Lynch theatre.
Festival related events (programs and schedules to be announced at a later date) will once again offer in-depth conversations with participating artists and scholars about the summer’s featured works.
LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2010 theatre PRESENTATIONS
Musashi (U.S. Premiere) Written by Hisashi Inoue Directed by Yukio Ninagawa Starring Tatsuya Fujiwara and Ryo Katsuji
Performed in Japanese with English supertitles; Three hours and 15 minutes, including a 20 minute intermission
July 7 at 7:30 p.m.; July 8 at 7:30 p.m.; July 9 at 7:30 p.m.; July 10 at 7:30 p.m. David H. Koch theatre, Broadway at 63rd Street
Tickets: $35, 55, 75, 100
Two famous samurai encounter each other with hilarious results in Hisashi Inoue’s Musashi, staged by legendary Japanese theatre director Yukio Ninagawa and, in its U.S. premiere at Lincoln Center Festival 2010. Ninagawa’s staging of Yukio Mishima’s Modern Noh Plays was a highlight of Lincoln Center Festival 05. One of Japan’s most popular young actors, Tatsuya Fujiwara, returns to the Festival in the title role in Musashi. He made a stunning Festival debut in Yoroboshi, one of the Modern Noh Plays. Rising star Ryo Katsuji performs the role of Musashi’s rival, Kojiro.
The lavishly-produced Musashi is inspired by the famous duel between samurai swordsmen Musashi Miyamoto (1584-1645) and his rival, Kojiro Sasaki (1585-1612?) in which Musashi was the victor. Finding no evidence that Musashi actually killed Kojiro, Inoue imagined what might happen if the two old foes met again six years later at a Zen temple in Kamakura, and Kojiro challenged Musashi to a re-match. Musashi had its world premiere in March 2009 in Saitama City, Japan, and is scheduled to play at the Barbican Theatre in London in May 2010 before it travels to Lincoln Center. Musashi is produced by HoriPro, Inc., which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Yukio Ninagawa has worked in the theatre since 1955 when he joined the Seihai Theatre Company as an actor. He made his directorial debut in Shinjo Afuruu Keihakusa written by Kunio Shimizu in 1969. Later, he set up his own theatre companies, Gendaijin-Gekijo and Sakurasha. Over the years Ninagawa has directed a wide range of productions including Japanese contemporary plays, traditional and classic stage works by such writers as Chikamatsu and Junichiro Tanizaki, and Shakespearean and Greek tragedies. In 1983, he directed his first European production, Medea. Since then he has staged at least one production a year overseas. He is a member of the Shakespeare Globe Council at the Globe Theatre in London, and was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2002. Ninagawa has received many theatre and educational awards in Japan. In addition to Modern Noh Plays at Lincoln Center Festival 05, his recent productions include his first production of Kabuki, NINAGAWA Twelfth Night at the Kabuki-za Theatre. In 2006 he became an artistic director of Sainokuni Saitama Arts theatre, Japan, and founded a unique performing group, the Gold Theatre, for people over 55 years of age. That same year he was invited by the Royal Shakespeare Company to stage Titus Andronicus as part of the Complete Works Festival and was honored to be the only Japanese director to participate in that special event.
Hisashi Inoue was educated in Sophia University. During his university years he became the Cultural Affairs and Promotions chief of the France-za burlesque, a vaudeville theatre in downtown Asakusa and began writing scripts for the theatre performances. Starting in 1964 he wrote scripts for a puppet play program, Hyokkori Hyotanjima, on NHK television.
Inoue made his debut in the theatre with the play The Belly Button of the Japanese in 1969. He won the Naoki Prize for the novel Handcuffed Double Suicide in 1972. That same year he won the Kishida Drama Award and the Selected New Artist Award for The Adventures of Dogen. He won the Yomiuri Literature Award (Drama Division) for his plays Shimijimi Nippon, Nogi Taisho and Kobayashi Issa, both the Japan Science Fiction Award and the Yomiuri Literature Award (Novel Division) for KiriKirijin, the Yoshikawa Eiji Literary Prize for Treasury of Disloyal Retainers and Fukkoki, the Tanizaki Prize for Shanghai Moon, the Kikuchi Kan Literary Award for Tokyo Seven Roses and both the Mainichi Art Award and the Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award for Taiko Tataite Fue Fuite. In 1984, he founded the Komatsu-za, a theatre troupe dedicated to his work, and he wrote a succession of plays for Komatsu-za. His plays, including Makeup, the Blind Master Yabuhara and Living with My Dad, have won high acclaim in overseas performances. In 2005, along with Yukio Ninagawa, he was part of the first team to create Shakespeare in Tempo 12 which combined all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays into one story.
Throughout his career, Inoue has been a prolific playwright, novelist and essayist. He received the Art Encouragement Award from the Japanese Ministry of Education in 2004 and the Literary Award from the Japan Art Academy in 2009. He was also chairman of Japan Pen Club.
Tatsuya Fujiwara has, since his theatrical debut at the age of 15 in Modern Noh Plays—Yoroboshi directed by Yukio Ninagawa in London in 1997—gone on to star in plays, films, and television dramas. Many of his screen performances have been released in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., and have received great critical acclaim. He has received Japan’s top awards as Best New Actor and Best Performer. In addition to his performance in Modern Noh Plays-Yoroboshi, his stage credits in Ninagawa productions include Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and Orestes. Other stage work includes Oil, Rope (directed by Hideki Noda), and The Merchant of Venice (directed by Gregory Doran). Films includes the lead role in Battle Royale (screened in 25 countries), in Death Note (screened in 51 countries), and in his latest work, KAIJI.
Ryo Katsuji was awarded the new artist award, the 2005 Japan Academy Prize, for his performance in the film Aegis. His other film credits include All about Lily Chou-Chou; Hanging Garden; Tokyo Tower – Mom & Me, and Sometimes Dad; and Shonen Merikensack. He has been in various hit TV dramas includes Tokyo Dogs, and the NHK period drama Atsu Hime, among others. His stage credits includes Ninagawa’s production, Shibuya kara Toku Hanarete, as well as Kitchen and Caligula. Other stage works include Inoue Kabuki’s Kagerou Touge. His latest film, Surely Someday (directed by Shun Oguri), will be released in the summer of 2010.
The Demons (North American Premiere) From the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Directed and adapted by Peter Stein
Performed in Italian with English supertitles; 12 hours, with short breaks; and lunch and dinner breaks (of one hour each)
July 10 and 11 from 11 a.m. until 11 p.m.
Governors Island
A ferry departs at 10 a.m. from the Battery Maritime Building (10 South Street, adjacent to Staten Island Ferry) to Governors Island. See “Transportation” information at the end of this section.
Tickets: $175, 225
In what is certain to be one of the most extraordinary theatre events of the year, Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present a marathon production of Dostoyevsky’s prophetic novel, The Demons, staged by Germany’s eminent theatre and opera director, Peter Stein, for two performances only in an industrial warehouse on Governor’s Island, July 10 and 11. The 12-hour marathon (with four intermissions and two breaks for lunch and dinner)—performed by a cast of 26 European actors in Italian (with English supertitles) for an audience of 467 people—will begin at 11 a.m. each day, after audiences take a 10 a.m. ferry to Governors Island. There will be no late seating.
Says Peter Stein, “My adaptation of The Demons, which has had different versions by Albert Camus, Frank Castorf, Lev Dodin, and Andrzej Wajda, is an almost complete version of Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece and all his characters. For this reason, I couldn’t accept the time limitation of a typical theatrical show.”
The Demons tells the story of a group of political conspirators who, at the urging of their leader, murder one of their own members. The real-life, widely-reported murder of a young student in Moscow by a small cell of revolutionaries in 1869 was the trigger for Dostoyevsky, beginning what would grow into a 900+ page work, also known in the West as The Possessed. He first conceived of this novel, started in 1869, as a pamphlet in which he would say everything he wanted about the plague the Western-imported ideas of Nihilism was exercising on the moral fiber of Russian society at that time. The “demons” that Dostoevsky described represented a Russia that had lost its moral center. He saw Russia as collapsing under the weight of conflicting ideologies, demonstrated by the disastrous choices made by left-wing youths, coupled with the futility of conservatives dealing with the consequences of those choices.
What emerged was a ferociously funny masterpiece set in pre-Revolutionary Russia, and an eerily prophetic foreshadowing of not only the soulless society that was to be, some 50 years later under Stalin, but also of 21st century terrorism. Stein has said that, in the novel’s central character of Stavrogin, the author has depicted someone who suffers from the great malady of our times: indifference, or feeling nothing inside—which is the gravest danger in our world today.
Peter Stein, who will make his Metropolitan Opera debut when he directs the new production of Boris Godunov at the Met this coming fall, is considered a giant in European theatre but his work has only rarely been seen on American stages. He made his American theatre debut in 2007 with his staging of the National theatre of Greece production of Sophocles’ Elektra at New York’s City Center. His American opera debut was The Welsh National Opera production of Verdi’s Falstaff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1989, and he directed Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2004. Stein believes in the primacy of the author’s words, and like his contemporary Ariane Mnouchkine, his technique involves intensive collaboration with the actors on interpretation of the text. In recent years, Stein has made his mark staging marathon performances. His 21-hour staging of the complete, uncut Faust (Parts I and II) by Goethe, which premiered at Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany, was an event of international magnitude.
Stein originated his adaptation and this production of The Demons with a theatre company in Turin, but the first performances were at his home in Umbria for a small audience in July 2009. On February 23, 2010, The Demons was awarded the Ubu Award (Italy’s equivalent to the Tony Award) for “The Show of the Year,” 2009. The Italian press lauded it as the most important and most discussed production of that season. The production will tour to Milan, Vienna, Amsterdam, Naples, Ravenna, and Athens before coming to New York, and will continue to tour Europe in the fall.
Audience members should plan on arriving no later than 9:45 a.m. to board the free 10 a.m. ferry to Governors Island. This is the only way to get to the performance. There is no late seating. The warehouse is a 20-minute walk from the ferry landing. Golf carts will be available for those requiring assistance. There will be free return ferry service to Manhattan each night at the conclusion of the performance. Detailed ferry information, as well as directions to Governors Island ferry terminal, will be provided to all ticket holders and will also be available at www.LincolnCenterFestival.org
The Demons is a co-production of Tieffe Teatro Milano and Wallenstein Betriebs GmbH Berlin in collaboration with Napoli Teatro Festival.
Peter Stein (born in Berlin, October 1, 1937) established himself at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, a company he co-founded in 1970 with Bruno Ganz and brought to the forefront of German theatre. He first became an assistant director in Munich in 1965, and made his critically acclaimed directing debut with Saved by Edward Bond two years later. Stein has had great success with the plays of Anton Chekhov—The Three Sisters (1984), The Cherry Orchard (1989, 1996) and Uncle Vanya (1996)—always revealing an
unexpected comic point of view in these classic tragedies. His adaptation and stagings of Aeschylus’Oresteia in 1980 in Berlin (in German) and in 1994 in Moscow (in Russian) are considered his most important and influential productions. He was theatre director of the Salzburg Festival from 1992 to 1997. His production of Goethe’s Faust (Parts I and II) was performed over two days at the Hanover Expo 2000, followed by performances in Berlin and Vienna. Stein has lived in Italy for many years, and is married to actress Maddalena Crippa, who is in the cast of The Demons. Stein has won many international prizes, including France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres et Chevalier de la Légion D’Honneur.
Complicite A Disappearing Number (N.Y. Premiere)
Conceived and directed by Simon McBurney Devised by The Company Original Music by Nitin Sawhney Design Michael Levine
Lighting Paul Anderson Sound Christopher Shutt Projection Sven Ortel Costume Christina Cunningham
110 minutes; no intermission
July 15 at 8 p.m.; July 16 at 8 p.m.; July 17 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; July 18 at 3 p.m. David H. Koch theatre, Broadway at 63rd Street
Tickets: $35, 55, 75, 100
British theatre company Complicite, celebrated for creating emotion-laden, mind-expanding shows from abstract concepts, returns to Lincoln Center Festival for its fourth visit with the New York premiere of its award-winning production, A Disappearing Number. Inspired by the true story of the unusual friendship between two of the 20th century’s most remarkable pure mathematicians—Cambridge University don G.H. (Godfrey Harold) Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, a young Brahmin genius—A Disappearing Number interweaves their tale with a fictional contemporary love story between a present-day university lecturer and her American-Asian partner.
Past, present, and future occur simultaneously onstage as A Disappearing Number explores such themes as the beauty of science, our quest for meaning and knowledge, who we are and how we connect to one another—and ultimately, what is permanent and what disappears forever.
The story of Hardy and Ramanujan is one of the most beautiful, yet heartbreaking mathematical collaborations of all time. Their story began before the first World War, when Ramanujan, then an impoverished clerk in Madras, appealed by mail for support to a number of mathematicians abroad. One of them was Hardy, who at first thought the letter and pages of mathematical formulae enclosed were some kind of practical joke. Along with others at Cambridge, he eventually made it possible for the young Indian to come to England. From 1913 until Ramanujan’s untimely death in 1920 (when he was 32 years old), these two unlikely collaborators engaged in a unique and complex intellectual partnership that has had lasting ramifications for those working in string theory and other complex mathematical topics.
Conceived and directed by Simon McBurney, A Disappearing Number received rave reviews in London, and won three of London’s major theatre awards, including the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play (2007), and The Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best New Play (2007). Complicite performed A Disappearing Number in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in September, 2008.
Founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni, Complicite is an ensemble of performers and collaborators, led by artistic director McBurney. Complicite’s work has ranged from original work to theatrical adaptations and revivals of classic texts.
Complicite at Lincoln Center
Complicite debuted at Lincoln Center Festival 96 with the U.S. premiere of The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, based on a story by John Berger. The company returned to the festival in 1998 with The Street of Crocodiles based on the life and work of Bruno Schultz and again in 2004 with The Elephant Vanishes (co- produced with Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo), based on the short stories of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. In 2000, Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series commissioned the company to create The Noise of Time. The Noise of Time, a multi-media dramatic work, was conceived and directed by Simon McBurney with the assistance of his musicologist brother, Gerard McBurney, and created in collaboration with the Emerson String Quartet. The piece was an evocation of the life of Dmitri Shostakovich, interweaving film, letters, and other materials with the performance of his last string quartet (No. 15) by the Emersons.
Other U.S. appearances by Complicite include Strange Poetry with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2004); the off-Broadway production of Mnemonic at the John Jay College theatre (2001); and the Broadway production of The Chairs (1998), which received six Tony nominations.
Co-founder of Complicite, Simon McBurney has written, directed and acted in more than 30 productions for the company. Most recently Simon directed Endgame, in which he also performed. Other recent work includes Shun-Kin, for which he was the first non-Japanese director to receive the Yomiuri Theatre Awards Grand Prize; Measure for Measure; A Minute Too Late; The Elephant Vanishes; Pet Shop Boys meet Eisenstein (Trafalgar Square); and Strange Poetry (with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in the Walt Disney Concert Hall). Other directing credits include The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (with Al Pacino in New York) and Lenny Henry’s So Much Things To Say. As an actor he has performed extensively in feature films including Body of Lies, The Duchess, The Last King of Scotland, Friends With Money and The Golden Compass. He is the recipient of the 2008 Berlin Academy of Arts Konrad Wolf Prize for outstanding multi-disciplinary artists. In the 2008-09 season, McBurney directed a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons with an all-star cast featuring John Lithgow, Diane Wiest, Patrick Wilson, and Katie Holmes.
A Disappearing Number is co-produced by Complicite, barbicanbite07, Wiener Festwochen, Holland Festival and Ruhrfestspiele, in association with Theatre Royal Plymouth
TONEELGROEP AMSTERDAM Teorema (North America premiere)
Adapted and directed by Ivo van Hove After the film and novel by Pier Paolo Pasolini Performed by Toneelgroep Amsterdam Music performed by Bl!ndman [new strings]
Performed in Dutch with English supertitles; One hour, 40 minutes, no intermission
July 15 at 7 p.m.; July 16 at 7 p.m.; July 17 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; July 18 at 3 p.m.; and July 19 at 7 p.m.
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present the first North American performances of Teorema, an adaptation of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s shocking and ambiguous novel and film, adapted and directed by renowned and controversial director Ivo van Hove.
Pasolini’s original story, which he made into a film in 1968 with Terence Stamp, Anne Wiazemsky, and Silvana Mangano, follows a mysterious stranger who visits an upper-class family and seduces everyone in the household in turn—mother, father, daughter, son, and maid—opening up a world of repressed desires and emotions. After he leaves, as suddenly and enigmatically as he came, a crisis ensues. No one is able to fill the sudden and gaping void left by his absence, and each turns to increasingly aberrant forms of behavior—all except the maid, who returns to her village and begins performing miracles.
Ivo van Hove began his career as a stage director in 1981, and since 2001 has been general director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam. His productions have been performed at Edinburgh International Festival, Venice Biennale, Holland Festival, theatre der Welt, Wiener Festwochen, and in Lisbon, Paris, Verona, Hanover, Porto, and Cairo. For Flemish Opera Antwerp, he staged Berg’s Lulu and Wagner’s Ring cycle; for Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, The Makropoulos Case and Iolanta; for Joop van den Ende Productions, the musical Rent; for Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Angels in America, the marathon Roman Tragedies (Shakespeare’s dramas Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra), and Opening Night, based on John Cassavetes’ film, a co-production with NTGent that traveled to the Brooklyn Academy of Music last fall. This season, he directs Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers, the Antonioni Project after Michelangelo Antonioni’s scenarios, and Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers. Van Hove’s work has received numerous awards, including two Obies for best director of an off-Broadway production (New York Theatre Workshop’s More Stately Mansions and Hedda Gabler).
For this spectacular production to be staged in an industrial warehouse on Governors Island, Ivo van Hove—known for his unremitting works of theatrical stagecraft—and the Toneelgroep Amsterdam theatre group create an unnervingly powerful adaptation, within Jan Versveyweld’s cold, spare set (echoing Pasolini’s desert motif), that includes a scarily effective score, with music by Beethoven, Webern, and Eric Sleichim, performed live by the Bl!ndman [new strings] with electronics.
Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Holland’s leading theatre company and the official municipal theatre company of Amsterdam, is based in Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam. With an annual average of five new plays and a total of 300 performances, the company works with guest directors Robert Woodruff, Krzysztof Warilikowski, Johan Simons and Thomas Ostermeier, and performs on stages in Germany, the United States, France, Russia, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium. The company has performed at the festivals RuhrTriennale, Wiener Festwochen, and Festival d’Avignon.
REZO GABRIADZE’S TBILISI MUNICIPAL THEATRE STUDIO Ermon and Ramona (U.S. Premiere) Conceived, designed and directed by Rezo Gabriadze
Performed in Georgian with English supertitles; 65 minutes; no intermission
July 20 at 7 p.m.; July 21 at 6 and 9 p.m.; July 22 at 6 and 9 p.m.; July 23 at 7 p.m.; July 24 at 3 and 7 p.m.; July 25 at 3 and 7 p.m.
Clark Studio theatre, Rose Building, 165 West 65th Street, 7th floor Tickets: $50, 60
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 welcomes the return of Rezo Gabriadze and his acclaimed puppet-theatre troupe from the Republic of Georgia, Tbilisi Municipal Theatre Studio, with Ermon and Ramona, the story of two trains who fall in love. Gabriadze is a master of stage magic who is celebrated for his works of fantasy and wit that are filled with beautiful, elliptical melancholy. His company made its New York debut at Lincoln Center Festival 2002 with two of his signature works, the elegiac The Battle of Stalingrad and The Autumn of My Springtime, which have toured the northern hemisphere. Gabriadze returned to the Festival in 2004 with his play, Forbidden Christmas, or the Doctor and the Patient, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov as a man who tries to turn himself into a car.
Like Gabriadze’s previous puppet plays, Ermon and Ramona is produced on a small scale with extraordinary puppets and sets made from such commonplace objects as string, bits of cloth, twigs and wire. It tells the story of an improbable love affair between a Trans-Siberian Express train and a shunting engine. As Ermon chugs across Siberia, Ramona, a shunting engine, must remain in a small train station in Rioni. Through a comically heartrending series of events, ever-romantic Ramona and heroic Ermon keep missing each other, deeply saddening the other characters, including a runaway hen, a wild boar, and a circus troupe. This tale of compassion and loss is accompanied by music inspired by Georgian folk songs.
Besides designing, constructing, and directing his works of puppet theatre at the Tbilisi Municipal Theatre Studio, the tiny puppet theatre which Gabriadze founded in 1981, this 74-year-old artist has been a writer, a sculptor, graphic artist, a journalist, a theatre and film director, a builder and a forester. Gabriadze’s exhibits have been shown in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Lausanne, Rome, Paris, Berlin, and other cities. He was a participant in Munich’s From Eisenstein to Tarkovsky exhibit. His paintings, graphics, and sculpture pieces are found in numerous state and private collections in the United States, Russia, Germany, Israel, Japan and France. For his film work, Rezo Gabriadze has won the Grand Prize of the International Moscow Film Festival and the Nike Prize, among others. His other prizes include the Tsarscoselsakay, Golden Sofit, Golden Mask, and the Triumph, the so-called Russian Nobel Prize.
His native Georgia is the small country in the Caucasus Mountains that even in the darkest Soviet times was known for endowing its inhabitants with a strong visual sensibility and vivid sense of humor. In an interview in a St. Petersburg theatre journal Gabriadze said, “I am sustained by the tiniest, the most miniscule details—pauses between words, music, silence, the wind and random glances.” These are also the ingredients of his unique art.
LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2010 MUSIC PRESENTATIONS
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou (U.S. debut)
One hour and 30 minutes; no intermission (approx.)
July 11 at 8 p.m. Gerald W. Lynch theatre, John Jay College, Tenth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets
Tickets: $30, 40
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present the U.S. debut of the Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, the voodoo/funk sensation from the African nation of Benin that has recently wowed audiences throughout Europe with its afro-infused psychedelia and James Brown-influenced rhythms. The New York Times, describing the band’s unique sound, says: “At times the funk turns into hypnosis, and the rest is unstoppable dance music.”
The cultural and spiritual richness of traditional Beninese music has had an immense impact on the country’s modern sound. Benin is the birthplace of Vodun (also spelled, Vodoun, or, as it is known in the West, Voodoo), a religion which involves the worship of over 250 sacred divinities. The rituals used to pay tribute to these divinities are colored by the complex polyrhythms of Vodun, which are still more or less secret and difficult to decipher for even an accomplished musician.
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou has modernized vibrant traditional rhythms by integrating psychedelic guitar riffs, organ harmonies, funk, and soul. This thrillingly energetic music was given new life in 2008 after being rediscovered by French radio journalist Elodie Maillot, who has helped the group tour internationally, and in 2009 by the Frankfurt-based label Analog Africa, devoted to the rediscovery of Africa’s musical repertoire of the 1970s, which has released compilations of dozens of the hundreds of songs the group recorded.
The TP Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou (the “TP” stands for Tout Puissant, or “all-powerful”) was formed in the late 1960s and became the house band at the Canne Au Sucre nightclub in Benin after a brief sojourn in Lagos in the early 1970s. The core of the band—Melome Clement, Eskill Lohento, and Francois Hoessou—created a remarkable new fusion by combining the sounds they had heard in Lagos with two traditional Vodun rhythms: Sato and Sakpata. Combining these patterns with soulful organ sounds and guitar riffs, they recorded dozens of 45’s at the Afrodisia studios. The Orchestre Poly-Rythmo has recorded over 500 LPs and 100 45s during its legendary career. The band is co-headlining the African Soul Rebel Tour with Oumou Sangare in February and March and will tour extensively in Europe this summer.
The Blind Boys of Alabama Three-concert series
July 12, 8 p.m.
Spirit in the Dark
Yo La Tengo Yim Yames of My Morning Jacket One hour and 30 minutes; no intermission (approx.)
July 14, 8 p.m.
The Unbroken Circle with Dr. Ralph Stanley and Friends
Yonder Mountain String Band Ray Benson and Jason Roberts of Asleep at the Wheel Ralph Stanley One hour and 30 minutes; no intermission (approx.)
July 16, 8 p.m.
Blind Boys Family Revival
Aaron Neville Joan Osborne Hot 8 Brass Band Dan Zanes John Hammond Charlie Musselwhite Additional artists to be announced
Two hours and 40 minutes; one 20 minute intermission (approx.)
Alice Tully Hall, 65th Street and Broadway Tickets: $35, 45 (each concert)
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present a three-night series curated by the seminal group The Blind Boys of Alabama, soul gospel veterans who have been deeply influential across many popular genres. The Blind Boys will perform at all three events, demonstrating the breadth of their musical collaborations with vastly diverse artists and their ability to combine the evocative power of gospel with pop, country, blues, and rock—creating a new kind of spiritual music that is both widely accessible and uniquely their own.
The celebrated Blind Boys—whose singing has been described as “gutsy lead vocals and rough-and-ready harmonies” by The New York Times—have won five Grammy Awards over 10 years, culminating in Grammy’s highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. Formed at a school for the visually impaired in 1939, The Blind Boys have featured many waves of remarkable and multi-generational musical talent over the past 70 years, and have toured with numerous artists ranging from Peter Gabriel to Ben Harper and Tom Petty.
The three Lincoln Center Festival celebrations of the incomparable group showcase The Blind Boys’ great range, starting with an opening night concert with Yo La Tengo and Yim Yames of My Morning Jacket. The second concert spotlights country music with Yonder Mountain String Band, Texas Swing sensations Ray Benson and Jason Roberts of Asleep at the Wheel, and bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley performing songs from The Blind Boy’s upcoming CD. The final evening, The Blind Boys Family Revival, will feature songs from all of the group’s Grammy Award-winning albums and include duets with Aaron Neville, Joan Osborne, Hot 8 Brass Band, Dan Zanes, John Hammond, Charlie Musselwhite, and others to be announced at a later date.
For 70 years, The Blind Boys of Alabama have traversed “higher ground” together. Since forming their group at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind (Talladega Blind School) in 1939, they have kept alive the spirit and energy of pure soul gospel music. Founded by Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter and George Scott—and currently featuring Carter with Eric McKinnie, Joey Williams, Tracy Pierce, Billy Bowers, and Ben Moore—the group has drawn upon gospel’s river-deep reflections on life’s trials, and combined its haunting falsettos and muscular harmonies with foot-stomping, rollicking beats. Since first reaching a wider audience in the 1983 Obie Award-winning production of the Broadway musical The Gospel at Colonnus, the singers have repeatedly reinvented the musical genre. In 2007, they released the Grammy winning album, Down in New Orleans, their first for Saguaro Road Records, which was followed in 2008 by a companion DVD, Live in New Orleans. The Blind Boys’ new album, Duets, was released in October and features collaborations with Ben Harper, Randy Travis, and Bonnie Raitt, along with previously unreleased recordings with Lou Reed, John Hammond, and Toots Hibbert, as well as a new song with Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles.
Emir Kusturica and The No Smoking Orchestra (U.S. debut)
One hour and 30 minutes; no intermission (approx.)
July 14 at 8 p.m. Avery Fisher Hall, 65th Street and Broadway
Tickets: $30, 40, 50
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present the U.S. debut of Emir Kusturica and The No Smoking Orchestra, the Serbian rock/punk group that is a major concert draw throughout the world. Playing its own unique blend of rock, folk, gypsy, and world music mixed with political satire and surrealist comedy, Emir Kusturica and The No Smoking Orchestra attracts enthusiastic audiences to its infectious, energetic live performances. Inspired by The Sex Pistols and The Clash, the electrifying group was described as a “rowdy, genre-straddling Balkan gypsy-punk rock ten-piece Orchestra” by Time Out London.
Leading the musically adventurous and politically rebellious group members of The No Smoking Orchestra is award-winning Serbian film director and guitarist Emir Kusturica. The group has contributed music to Kusturica’s films, including Black Cat White Cat and Life Is a Miracle, and has been the subject of one of Kusturica’s own films: the documentary portrait 8mm Stories.
The No Smoking Orchestra (Zabranjeno Pušenje in Serbo-Croatian) was formed in Sarajevo in 1980 and became the most significant musical expression of “New Primitivism,” a cultural resistance movement that began in Yugoslavia at the end of Marshal Tito’s reign. While filming his debut feature, Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, in 1981, Emir Kusturica became friends with the band members, and he started playing with them both live and to record an album. After two years of performing in Sarajevo, in 1984 the group recorded its first album, Das ist Walter. When Yugoslavia broke apart in 1991, the musicians separated and the group went on hiatus. Those who lived in Serbia, among them singer-songwriter Nele Karajlić and violinist Dejan Sparavalo, made a new album, asked Kusturica back, and began performing live again. During the shooting of his film Black Cat, White Cat (1998), Kusturica called Karajlić regularly to ask him to compose songs for the soundtrack, which began another fruitful collaboration among the band members.
Varèse: (R)evolution
NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC Alan Gilbert, Music Director and Conductor INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE (ICE) Steven Schick, Conductor
Varèse: (R)evolution, PART I July 19 at 8 p.m.
International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) Steven Schick, conductor So Percussion Anu Komsi, soprano Alan Held, bass baritone Mikka Rännäli, piano Jonathan Golove and Natasha Farny, cello theremins Claire Chase, flute Musica Sacra Kent Tritle, chorus master Program: Poème Électronique (1957–1958); no musicians Un Grand Sommeil Noir (1906) Hyperprism (1923) Offrandes (1921) Integrales (1925) Ecuatorial (1933–1934) for bass-baritone solo Dance for Burgess (1949) Étude pour Espace (1947, arrangement by Prof. Chou Wen-Chung 2009) Density 21.5 (1936) for flute solo Déserts (1949–1954)
One hour; one intermission Alice Tully Hall, Starr theatre, 65th Street and Broadway
Tickets: $30, 40 Varèse: (R)evolution PART II
July 20 at 8 p.m.
New York Philharmonic Alan Gilbert, conductor and music director Anu Komsi, soprano Oratorio Society Kent Tritle, chorus master Program Ionisation (1930–1931) Octandre (1923) Tuning up (1947, arr. Chou Wen-Chung 1989), Arcana (1927, revision 1960) Nocturnal (1961) Amériques (1929)
One hour, 45 minutes; one intermission Avery Fisher Hall, 65th Street and Broadway
Tickets: $30, 40, 50
Music Director Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), led by Steven Schick, will perform the complete works of influential 20th century composer Edgard Varèse over two nights when Lincoln Center Festival 2010 presents Varèse: (R)evolution on July 19 and 20. The soprano soloist for both programs is Anu Komsi, whose last Festival appearance was in George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill in 2007.
Franco-American composer Edgard Varèse (1883-1965) was a unique character in the progressive classical music scene, extracting the urban sounds of New York and reinventing them on stage. Often called the “father of electronic music,” he completed just under three hours of music in his lifetime. He coined the term “organized sound,” and wrote scores that greatly emphasized timbre and rhythm. His grouping together of these parts led to an entirely new kind of music, which included new instruments and electronic sounds.
Varèse: (R)evolution Part I, on July 19 in Alice Tully Hall, features Steven Schick and ICE, joined by So Percussion, soprano Anu Komsi, bass baritone Alan Held, pianist Mikka Rännäli, cello thereminists Jonathan Golove and Natasha Farny, flutist Claire Chase, and Musica Sacra (Kent Tritle, Chorus Master) in a performance of works for smaller forces and chamber ensembles, including such seminal compositions as Density for 21.5 for solo flute and Étude pour Espace, which was completed by his student, Chou Wen- Chung). Also on the program: Poème Électronique (multi-channel tape, no musicians); Un Grand Sommeil Noir; Hyperprism; Offrandes; Integrales; Ecuatorial for bass-baritone; Dance for Burgess; and Déserts.
The following evening, July 20, for Part II in Avery Fisher Hall, Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic will be joined by Miss Komsi and the Oratorio Society (Kent Tritle, Chorus Master) for a performance of Varèse’s brilliant orchestral works: Tuning up; Arcana; Nocturnal; and Amériques; as well as Ionisation for percussion and piano and Octandre for eight players.
French-born Edgard Varèse exercised a strong influence on the contemporary avant-garde, particularly in the United States, where he spent time from 1915 until 1928, when he returned to Paris. Back in America in 1933, he eventually found the necessary backing for his electro-acoustic research. He enjoyed a career as a conductor but is now remembered chiefly for his experiments in composition and for the influence his work has exerted over composers in the second half of the 20th century. Varèse made an early impression with Offrandes for soprano and small orchestra in 1921 and Octandre, for wind instruments and double bass, first heard in New York in 1924. Later “organized sound” works including Ionisation for 13 percussion players, completed in 1931, and Déserts, with its combination of instrumental performance and recorded tape, completed in 1954. Two of Varèse’s works (Déserts and Poème Électronique) were heard at Lincoln Center Festival 2000 in the five-part Electronic Evolution series.
The New York Philharmonic has been performing the music of Varèse since 1958 when Leonard Bernstein led the orchestra in performances of Arcana. The tradition continued under the orchestra’s conductors including Music Directors Bernstein, Pierre Boulez (one of Varèse’s great advocates), Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, and, now Alan Gilbert. The Philharmonic’s previous appearances at the Lincoln Center Festival were in 2002, in a concert celebrating Kurt Masur’s birthday; in 2000, in a concert of Messiaen’s Éclairs Sur L’au-Delà and Turangalila-Symphonie conducted by Hans Vonk; a five-part Beethoven series led by then-Music Director Kurt Masur and featuring pianist Emanuel Ax in 1999; six concerts celebrating the music of Leonard Bernstein led by Mr. Masur in 1998; and six concerts in 1997 (including Ornette Coleman’s Skies of America) led by Mr. Masur. Members of the orchestra also performed in a chamber concert of the music of Hans Pfitzner in that same festival. Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic played seven concerts in the inaugural festival, in 1996.
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is a chamber music ensemble comprising 30 dynamic and versatile young performers dedicated to advancing the music of our time. ICE most recently performed at Lincoln Center during last summer’s Mostly Mozart Festival in a concert of works by John Adams. Founded in 2001, ICE has rapidly established itself as one of the leading new-music ensembles of its generation, winning first prize in the 2005 Chamber Music America/ASCAP Awards, and performing over 50 concerts a year in the U.S. and abroad. The ensemble released its first critically acclaimed CD on the Naxos label in 2007, and has recently released a new album on the New York-based New Focus Recordings label featuring works by Davidovsky, Lindberg, Saariaho, Du Yun, and Fujikura. In addition to ICE’s performances at major venues throughout the world, the ensemble has self-produced eight contemporary music festivals in venues as wide-ranging as nightclubs, galleries and warehouses, many of which are free and open to the public.
LA PORTA DELLA LEGGE (North American Premiere) Quasi un monologo circolare Composed by Salvatore Sciarrino Libretto by Salvatore Sciarrino after a text by Franz Kafka Musical direction/Conducted by Hilary Griffiths
Stage direction by Johannes Weigand Set and costume design by Jürgen Lier Lighting by Sebastian Ahrens Video by Jakob Creutzburg
Wuppertal Opera Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal Cast: Ekkehard Abele, baritone; Gerson Sales, counter-tenor; Michael Tews, bass
Performed in Italian with English supertitles; 75 minutes; no intermission
July 20, 21, 22 at 8:30 p.m.
Gerald W. Lynch theatre, John Jay College, Tenth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets Tickets: $35, 55, 75
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present the North American premiere of La porta della legge, an opera by leading Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino, whose work was previously represented at the Festival— by Luci mie traditrici in 2001 and Macbeth in 2003. La porta della legge—which had its world premiere in April 2009 at the Wuppertal Opera in Germany—is based on a story by Franz Kafka originally written independently, then incorporated into his novel Der Prozess (The Trial). Sciarrino wrote the opera’s libretto.
The three-character La porta della legge features a baritone (Man 1), counter-tenor (Man 2) and bass (Gatekeeper). Kafka’s circular literary form (Quasi un monologo circolare—“Almost a circular monologue,”—is the subtitle Sciarrino has given his opera) is mirrored in his musical adaptation, notably in the pivotal scene of a man waiting so long at the gates of the House of Justice for his case to be heard that he dies before he can stand trial. In La porta della legge, Sciarrino repeats this scene three times: in the first, the role is sung by a baritone, the second time by a counter-tenor, and finally by both of the singers together. Though the scenes parallel one another, there are differences in tonal transformations and textures that are important to Sciarrino’s representation.
“Since the death of Luciano Berio in 2003, Sciarrino has assumed the mantle of Italy’s most important living composer…in his own way, a sensualist and a lyricist…he plays with sound at its edges,” wrote The Los Angeles Times in a recent article about the composer. The Evening Standard said, “His music is made of aphorisms, like a volume of e e cummings, but the fragments cohere into a picture that is both attractive to the ear and mathematically absorbing.”
Salvatore Sciarrino has long been regarded as on of Europe’s leading composers and his large body of work includes seven operas, numerous orchestral pieces, instrumental and choral chamber works, and music for the stage. His work has been presented at La Scala Milan, Florence’s Teatro del Maggio Musicale, La Fenice in Venice, the Venice Biennale, as well as the opera houses of Stuttgart, Brussels, Frankfurt and Paris, and by the London Symphony Orchestra. His discography numbers more than 80 acclaimed and prize-winning recordings. In 2008 and 2009, CDs of work spanning 30 years were released on the Kairos label. Along with the librettos of his own works of opera and music theatre, Sciarrino has also authored articles and essays on music and theatre. He has taught at the conservatories of Milan (1974-1983), Perugia (1983-1987), and Florence (1987-1996). Between 1978 and 1980, he was artistic director of the Teatro Comunale of Bologna. He has won prestigious prizes, including the inaugural Musikpreis Salzburg (2006). The composer’s recent work includes his 2006 opera Da gelo a gelo; 4 Adagi (2008); and 12 Madrigali premiered at the 2008 Salzburg Festival which presented a survey of his work.
Born and educated in England, conductor Hilary Griffiths received advanced training at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, and began his career at Cologne Opera. He has served as music director of the Oberhausen Opera, general music director of the City of Regensburg Opera, Chief Conductor of the Prague State Opera and Music Director of the Eutin Opera Festival, and has appeared as guest conductor throughout Germany, as well as across Europe, in Japan, China, South America and Canada. His repertoire consists of more than 100 operas. In addition to the world premiere of La porte della legge, he has conducted the European premieres of three operas by Thea Musgrave. Griffiths was professor and music director of the Opera School of Mannheim University from 2004-2009. He joined Wuppertal Opera in 2009 as Chief Conductor and Music Director, where, with Johannes Weigand, he has created productions of Fidelio, Eine florentinische Tragödie and Gianni Schicchi.
Stage director Johannes Weigand studied opera and music-theatre directing at the Hamburg Conservatory. Early engagements as assistant director were for the Frankfurt and Bonn Operas, Salzburg Festival, Nice Opera House and the Los Angeles Opera, where he collaborated with directors Herbert Wernick, Giancarlo del Monaco and Achim Freyer, among others. He became principal stage director for Wuppertal Opera in 2001, receiving early acclaim for his production of The Barber of Seville. His work for Wuppertal encompasses operettas, and modern music-theatre productions, in addition to opera. Notable opera projects include The Death of Klinghoffer (2005) with John Adams and Hänsel und Gretel (2006) with Toshiyuki Kamioka. Weigand was appointed Artistic Director of Wuppertal Opera in 2009.
Wuppertal Opera
The Wupper Valley in Germany has a long and storied history, with the 19th-century theatres of the two towns that existed there prior to 1929 presenting opera performances as early as 1821. In 1929, with the formation of the municipality of Wuppertal, the two theatres were combined as the Städtische Bühnen Wuppertal (State Opera of Wuppertal). Among the major figures associated with Wuppertal are Hans Knappertsbusch, Max Ophüls, Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Gert Fröbe and Horst Tappert. In recent decades, choreographer Pina Bausch brought international attention to the city with her acclaimed Tanztheatre Wuppertal which she directed until her death in 2009. Since 1945 the City Opera of Wuppertal has been responsible for many new and progressive productions of drama and opera. With its name changed recently to Wuppertaler Bühnen, it continues to support permanent ensembles for opera and theatre.
Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal
The orchestra traces its history back 150 years and today consists of 88 musicians who perform approximately 40 concerts annually in their home theatre, Historische Stadthalle Wuppertal, a Jugenstil architectural gem whose outstanding acoustics are acknowledged throughout Europe. Leading musical figures such as Clara Schumann, Brahms and Bruch have been associated with the orchestra, and a number of renowned conductors, including Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer and Hans Weisbach began their careers with the ensemble. In addition to its home season, the ensemble also tours regularly throughout Germany and Europe. A recent first-time tour to Japan (to sold-out houses in four cities) resulted in a two- CD release. A more extensive Japanese tour is planned for the 2010–11 season.
LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2010 DANCE PRESENTATIONS
SABURO TESHIGAWARA Miroku (New York Premiere)
Solo Dance by Saburo Teshigawara Choreography, set, lighting and costume design by Saburo Teshigawara Music compilation by Neil Griffiths, Kei Miyata, Saburo Teshigawara
60 minutes; no intermission
July 9 and July 10 at 8:30 p.m., July 11 at 3 p.m. Rose theatre, Frederick P. Rose Hall, 60th Street and Broadway
Tickets: $30, 40, 50, 60
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present the New York premiere of dancer-choreographer Saburo Teshigawara’s newest solo work, Miroku. At Lincoln Center Festival 2006, Teshigawara’s solo dance Bones in Pages received rapturous accolades, including from The New York Times which called it “magical, one of the most striking examples of imagistic dance-theatre, or dance-art installation, that I have ever seen.” With Miroku, Teshigawara continues his singular exploration of movement and, as with previous works, this solo piece sees him redefining the parameters of space and time. Miroku, for which Teshigawara created the set, lighting and costume design, as well as the choreography, showcases his phenomenal range as a dancer, from eruptions of furious energy to a Zen-like stillness. Miroku premiered in 2007 at the New National Theatre Tokyo and subsequently was performed at the Montpellier Dance Festival among others. “He created a magnificent epic of dance of the soul,” wrote The Yomiuri (Japan). Miroku will be performed in Canada, Minnesota and Ohio, prior to its Festival performances in July.
Teshigawara’s finely honed sculptural sensibilities and powerful sense of composition, his command of space, keen interest in music, fascination with contrasts and extremes, and his distinctive dance movements all come together to create a unique world of sight, sound, and movement. In Japan, according to a recent article in Performing Arts Network Japan, his style of dance based on “dialogue with one’s own body” has become a major movement in contemporary dance.
Dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and visual artist Saburo Teshigawara began his professional career in 1981 in his native Tokyo after formal studies in fine arts, sculpture, and classical ballet. After exploring contemporary movement, he formed his own company KARAS (which means “crow” in Japanese) in 1985 and with co-founder, dancer Kei Miyata, began creating his own visionary dance-art works. His stated goal was to search for a “new form of beauty” by ignoring conventions and strict categorization in dance and to create a new language of expression fusing movement, visual arts, and music.
As a solo dancer and choreographer/performer with KARAS, Teshigawara continued to experiment with visual art, film and video, as well as scenic design, lighting, and costume design, creating numerous site- specific works. In the late 1980s, his work came to prominence in Japan. Since the early 1990s, he and KARAS have appeared regularly in Europe, Canada and Oceania, touring to major theatres and festivals around the world.
Teshigawara has created works for the Bayern State Ballet, Ballett Frankfurt, Nederlands Dans theatre, Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris, and the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. His Para-Dice for Geneva was seen in New York when that company performed at the Joyce theatre in 2007.tout
Since 1986, Teshigawara has created more than 25 dance works with KARAS, including Mirror and Music (2009) a work for eight dancers; Obsession (2009) a duet performed by Teshigawara and Rihoko Sato, inspired by Luis Bunuel’s film Un Chien Andalou; and the provocative Glass Tooth (2006), in which Teshigawara and several solo dancers perform on a massive square made of countless pieces of broken glass. In recent years his workshops with young blind people have resulted in performances of works he has titled Luminous. On-going workshops with middle- and high-school students in Japan have evolved into the Dance of Air performance series, which has received wide attention and critical acclaim.
In 1995, Teshigawara started S.T.E.P. (Saburo Teshigawara Education Project), in partnership with the London International Festival of Theatre and The Place, to work with students and young artists on year- long projects that culminate in formal performances. In 2004, he was selected as the dance mentor for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, to work for a year with promising young Ethiopian dancer/choreographer Junaid Jemal, joining a distinguished roster of 2004 mentors that included visual artist David Hockney and novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. As a professor at Japan’s Rikkyo University since 2006, he has taught movement theory and conducted workshops for the Department of Expression Studies. Teshigawara is the recipient of numerous honors including the Japanese Dance Critics Association Award (1988 and 2001), the Asahi Performing Arts Award (2001 and 2003), the purple Ribbon prize in 2009, which is a prestigious medal given to artists in Japan, and many European dance awards.
Produced by KARAS / New National Theatre Tokyo
Miroku is sponsored by J.C.C. Fund of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New York, Inc. and Mitsubishi International Corporation.
BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY Bill T. Jones, Artistic Director Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray
Conceived and Directed by Bill T. Jones Choreographed by Bill T. Jones with Janet Wong and the Company Original Music Composed and Arranged by Jerome Begin, Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, and George Lewis, Jr. Décor by Bjorn Amelan Video by Janet Wong Costume by Liz Prince Sound by Lindsay Jones
1 hour and 30 minutes; no intermission
July 15, 16 and 17 at 8 p.m. Rose theatre, Frederick P. Rose Hall, 60th Street and Broadway
Tickets: $30, 40, 55, 75
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present the first performances in New York City of choreographer Bill T. Jones’ latest dance theatre work, Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray, performed by members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The work was co-commissioned by Lincoln Center for Lincoln Center’s 50th Anniversary. The acclaimed company last appeared at Lincoln Center during Lincoln Center Festival 2006 with the evening-length work Blind Date.
One of the most ambitious projects of Jones’ legendary career, Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray, a full-evening company work, investigates the many meanings of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator and the 16th President of the United States, rejecting those “truths” that have become accepted as part of the legend, and challenging—as well as celebrating—what are considered his lasting contributions to the welfare of the country during the Civil War and beyond. Commissioned by the Ravinia Festival to mark the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, the work became a personal exploration for Jones, “seeking a way to articulate if not reconcile” the view of Lincoln he had as a young boy growing up during the civil rights struggle and as a mid-life, liberal artist who “has very few heroes.”
The multi-layered work investigates key moments in Lincoln’s remarkable life—from rural Illinois rail-splitter, to his marriage to Mary Todd, to president during the most divisive era in our history—to explore the chasm between what is and what could have been for the United States over the past 150 years. Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray also asks us to examine our current world as well as timeless issues about how we lead our own lives. The title is taken from a passage in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.” In addition to Lincoln’s own words, and biographical sources, Jones drew inspiration from the poems of Walt Whitman, in particular “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” and quotations from all of these materials are woven throughout. The music combines original composition with popular songs and classical music of the era. The stage design and decor, which incorporates multi-media elements by Janet Wong, was created by Bjorn Amelan.
Reviewing a recent performance at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Fondly/Fervently holds its focus through the talent and dedication of the performers plus Jones’ powerful conviction that it takes many stories and many sources to tell Americans who they are and where they’ve been.”
Bill T. Jones, artist, director, choreographer and writer, has received major awards ranging from a 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award to a 2007 Tony Award for Spring Awaking. Jones is the recipient of the 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award and was named “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure” by the Dance Heritage Coalition in 2000. Most recently, he was one of 22 prominent black Americans featured in Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell’s HBO documentary The Black List, which premiered at the Sundance Festival in January of 2008 and was broadcast nationally in fall 2008. Fela!, directed, co-written and choreographed by Mr. Jones, is currently playing to rave reviews on Broadway. Jones began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), where he studied ballet and modern dance. He choreographed and performed worldwide with his late partner, Arnie Zane, with whom he formed the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982. He has created some 140 works—for his own company as well as for Alvin Ailey American Dance theatre, Axis Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Berlin Opera Ballet and Diversions Dance Company. In 1995, Mr. Jones directed and performed in a collaborative work with Toni Morrison and Max Roach, Degga, at Alice Tully Hall, commissioned by Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun Festival. His collaboration with Jessye Norman, How! Do! We! Do!, premiered at New York’s City Center in 1999, as part of Lincoln Center’s “New Visions” series. In addition to Blind Date, Jones’ You Walk, and his solo, The Breathing Show were featured at Lincoln Center Festival 2000.
Founded in 1982, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company was the product of an 11-year collaboration between Jones and his partner Arnie Zane. The company has performed an ever-enlarging repertoire in over 200 cities and 30 countries worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Japan, Portugal, Greece, South Africa, and the Czech Republic. Some of the most celebrated creations in its highly diverse repertoire are evening-length works, including Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land (1990), Still/Here (1994), and Mr. Jones’ solo production, The Breathing Show (1999). The Company has collaborated with, among others, Keith Haring, The Orion String Quartet, Cassandra Wilson, Ross Bleckner, Jenny Holzer and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Ravinia Festival, lead commissioner. Co-commissioned by Lincoln Center Festival and Indiana University Auditorium
PICHET KLUNCHUN DANCE COMPANY Chui Chai (New York Premiere)
Choreography by Pichet Klunchun Music by Sinnapa Sarasas Lighting by Pichet Klunchun
1 hour and 10 minutes; no intermission
July 24 at 8 p.m., July 25 at 3 p.m. Gerald W. Lynch theatre, John Jay College, Tenth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets
Tickets: $30, 40, 50
Lincoln Center Festival 2010 will present the Pichet Klunchun Dance Company in Chui Chai, an exquisite dance work that showcases choreographer Pichet Klunchun’s distinctive merging of traditional Thai classical dance and contemporary movement. Klunchun previously appeared at Lincoln Center Festival 2006, dancing in, and choreographing Ramakien: A Rak Opera, a contemporary music-theatre work inspired by the “Floating Princess” section of the Ramakien saga, the Thai national epic, based on the Hindu Ramayana.
Chui Chai, a full-evening work, expands on a shorter piece of the same title, which was seen in New York in fall of 2008, when the company made its New York debut. The New York Times wrote, “In this day and age dance doesn’t have to be beautiful, but Mr. Klunchun’s Chui Chai…was gorgeous from start to finish.” “Truly entrancing movement,” said Ballet.co.uk. Dance Magazine chose the work as one of the 10 Best in Choreography for 2008.
In Chui Chai (which roughly translates as “Transformation”) Klunchun re-imagines the familiar Thai fable of the beautiful Princess Benyaki, who at the request of her king is asked to transform herself into Sita the queen of his enemy—an episode in the Ramakien epic. With his Chui Chai, Klunchun explores different types of transformation—from male to female, ancient to modern world—as he performs shirtless and in jeans, re-interpreting movements from Khon (traditional Thai classical mask dance) alongside elaborately- costumed female dancers who perform traditional dance.
In addition to being recognized as one of the master performers of traditional Thai dance, Pichet Klunchun is Thailand’s only post-modern choreographer creating dance on an international scale. His work integrates classical vocabulary with a contemporary sensibility. Klunchun trained in Thai Classical Mask Dance (Khon) from age 16 with Chaiyot Khummanee, one of the most prominent Khon masters in Thailand. He received a master’s degree in Thai Classical Dance from Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. Klunchun has earned accolades at home for his exploration of modern approaches to Khon.
As a choreographer and director, he created the opening and closing ceremonies for the 1998 Asian Games held in Bangkok; directed the popular spectacle The River of Kings 1 (1999) and The River of Kings 2 (2001), staged on the banks of Bangkok’s Chao Phrya River. Klunchun directed, choreographed, and performed I am a demon, and About Khon which have been touring in Europe, Asia and the Middle East since 2006. His performance with French avant-garde director/performer Jérôme Bel in Pichet Klunchun and myself, which premiered in 2005, has continued to garner high-praise, on tour in Europe and the U.S. In 2008, Klunchun received “Routes” ECF Princess Margaret Award for Cultural Diversity from the European Cultural Foundation, which honors artists and thinkers in the field of cultural diversity.
—
TICKETS
Tickets for Lincoln Center Festival 2010 are on sale now via CenterCharge 212-721-6500, online at www.LincolnCenterFestival.org, and at the Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall Box Offices, 65th Street and Broadway.
PHONE NUMBERS/CONTACT INFORMATION
CenterCharge: 212-721-6500
Lincoln Center’s website: www.LincolnCenter.org (general); www.LincolnCenterFestival.org (Festival)
Lincoln Center Customer Service: 212-875-5456
VENUE LOCATIONS
Alice Tully Hall, 65th Street and Broadway, Lincoln Center
Avery Fisher Hall, 65th Street and Broadway, Lincoln Center
Clark Studio Theater, the Rose Building, 165 W. 65th Street, 7th floor
Governors Island*, via free ferry, Battery Maritime Building located at 10 South Street, adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry in Lower Manhattan
David H. Koch Theater, Broadway at 63rd Street, Lincoln Center
Gerald W. Lynch Theater, John Jay College, Amsterdam Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets
Rose Theater, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway