Cape Verdean choreographer and director Marlene Monteiro Freitas stages Arnold Schönberg's "Pierrot lunaire" in stunning images and lets the commedia dell'arte character - naive, curious, eccentric, lonely - tumble through a visual adventure.
Schönberg's 1912 composition for speaking voice and chamber ensemble sets 21 poems from Albert Giraud's cycle "Pierrot lunaire" to music. Monteiro Freitas freely associates the musical level with a multitude of visual details such as gazes, gestures, bodies, objects and colors, which combine to create fascinatingly enigmatic scenes.
Experimental vocalist Sofia Jernberg and the Klangforum Wien, under the musical direction of Ingo Metzmacher, are all performers in a kaleidoscopic universe that follows its very own rules and immerses the audience in the mystical world of "Pierrot lunaire". Between speech and song, intimacy and expressiveness, comedy and tragedy, a mosaic of absurd, sometimes funny, sometimes touching snapshots is created that shed light on the question of the essence of Pierrot.
Photo: Nurith Wagner-Strauss
Text: Herrenhausen Arts Festival