Overview
A deeply moving production in which Romeo Castellucci conjures up an excavation simultaneously macabre and contemplative where, as if from a pit – that of the dead, that of the orchestra – Mahler's restless metaphysics, grippingly embodied, emerge. With Mahler’s full expressive fever, Symphony No.2 ‘Resurrection’, a vast existential and metaphysical poem, explores the question of finiteness and the hope of life after death. Borrowed from a poem by Klopstock (1724-1803), the term ‘Resurrection’ is the point on the horizon towards which the five movements converge, in a work also drawing from the melodic treasure of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (‘The Boy’s Magic Horn’). After an imposing funerary piece, quoting the famous Dies Irae, the memory of folk celebration relieves the tension, symbolising the strength and endurance of vital instinct. But anxiety soon resurges in the form of an ironic, infernal ronde, streaked with desperate dissonances and culminating in a poignant melody, ‘Urlicht’ (‘Original light’), with the voice of the alto singing the distress of humankind. Powerful and driven by internal struggles, the vast Finale resounds until the murmur of the choir after an apocalyptic silence: ‘I will die to live.’
Artists
Orchestre de Paris
Chœur de l'Orchestre de Paris
Esa-Pekka Salonen , conducting
Romeo Castellucci , staging, scenery, costumes, lights
Piersandra Di Matteo , dramaturgy
Julie Roset , soprano
Marie-Andrée Bouchard Lesieur , viola
Richard Wilberforce , choirmaster
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