This work had its world premiere earlier this year at the Berliner Festspiele. A new production by the duo Alain Platel & Fabrizio Cassol is always greeted with great anticipation. They collaborated previously on the Mariavespers (vsprs 2006), the Matthew Passion by Bach (pitié 2008) and Western Baroque repertoire (Coupe Fatale 2014).
Both find each other in creating new stories based on familiar material, which largely belongs to the classical European repertoire. Their partnership continues to astonish and delight. Mozart's Requiem was unfinished at his death. At the request of his widow Konstanza, the work was completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayer. The fact that the score was unfinished allowed Cassol to break into the 'Requiem'. But he also reworked the original. He created a separate sound world that is nourished by music from Africa, India… which were always connected to forms of spirituality. The massive choral singing had to make way for individual voices. Fourteen musicians from different continents reconstruct Mozart's Requiem by letting it fuse with jazz, opera and popular African music. Not a symphonic orchestra but as instruments: an accordion (Joao Barradas), electric guitar (Kojack Kossakamvwe), euphonium (Niels van Heerum), likembe (Bouton Kalanda, Erick Ngoya and Silva Makengo) and percussion (Michel Seba), guitar and electric bass (Rodriguez Vangama). Under the inspired direction of Alain Platel, this 'Requiem pour L' results in incomparable warmth and overwhelming power. In this work, Alain Platel and Fabrizio Cassol as it were conjure up the power that death holds over us. The magical bridge between two worlds: life and death.
This world already existed when we were born and continues to exist when we are no longer among the living. There is a beginning and an endpoint for everyone. Platel does not need to invent reality. Dying can be in pain and agony, but also with resignation and gratitude for a beautiful life. The audience witnesses the final hours of a woman in a serene projection. The camera records as a silent and respectful witness. Around it a world of people who loved her and take loving leave of her. L. knew she was going to die and agreed to be filmed and for the footage to be integrated into the production. That is why Requiem pour L is a tribute to this woman and by extension a Requiem pour Elles to all women, to all people, to life of which dying is a part.
Stage Design
A large white projection screen, in front of it a few rows of grey rectangular objects that rise in steps. Immediately there is the connotation with the gigantic field of concrete blocks of the Holocaust-Mahnmal memorial in Berlin between the Brandenburger Tor and the Potsdammer Platz.
The accordionist walks onto the stage and plays a strange rhythm. Gradually the actors/singers and instrumentalists trickle onto the stage and walk between the cubes. They place small stones on them, as the Jews do. We find ourselves in a cemetery. The setting around the screen is like a painting with masterful lines coloured with emotions, songs that give a general image of the world and life. A vibrating mass of moving bodies, warm and melodious voices, dancing in an explosion of vocal fireworks.
The intimate coherence of this reality is given body by the music. Music as a soothing, healing balm for the things that hurt each of us from within. The music resonates with the images on the screen. You see the dying woman's face and upper body all the time. There are people around her in silent presence. You can see this in a butterfly-light, caressing hand on her upper arm. Someone who embraces her and brings a smile to her face. Her eyes are mostly closed. Now and then she looks around her. Her dark eyes light up in her pale face. Saying goodbye in converging lines with other cultures. Opposite the still body on the screen, there is nothing but movement of the bodies on stage. The music follows an unpredictable trajectory. Mozart's 'Requiem' shines through it like rays of sunlight filtered through a forest. Boule Mpanya, Fredy Massamba, Rusell Tsiebua: vocals and Nobulumko Mngxekeza, Owen Metsileng, Stephen Diaz and Rodrigo Fereira, lyrical vocals let the different melodies flow seamlessly into each other. Performed by artists with a special affinity for African music. It is woven into their genes. Through the extrapolation of feelings, a diptych emerges. The restrained farewell of the Westerner opposite the extroversion of Africans. The struggle between love and death seen the ambivalent human nature.
When her end draws near, Niels Van Heertum coaxes strange sounds from his euphonium like a herald of death. Towards the end, the accordionist and euphonium player represent the woman's heartbeat: slower, more irregular, jerky. Music and singing fall silent several times: you only hear her breath… ever quieter. You witness how the woman gradually glides into death, her mouth falls open. Loved ones stroke her face awkwardly and tenderly. I have rarely known a full hall to be so quiet, caught in the cocoon of this intimate event. At the end, a capella, the beautiful Miserere sounds in a mixture of purity and tragedy. As the organ point of the production, the entire cast dances a kind of defiant struggle dance. Life goes on like a wave movement. Being born and dying.
A performance that lingers on the retina but also emotionally because of the passionate intensity, beauty and thoughtful tranquility. Alain Platel and Fabrizio Cassol guide the audience home with infinite peace.
- WHAT: Requiem pour L
- WHO: Les ballets C de la B / Festival de Marseille / Berliner, music Fabrizio Cassol based on the Requiem by Mozart, scenography Alain Platel
- WHERE: deSingel, Antwerpen
- WHEN: Thursday, 8 March 2018
- Photos: © Chris Van der Burgh
