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© Patrick Berger / Artcomart
Trauernacht
Johann Sebastian Bach
11 - 21 July 2014
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, from Four Quartets (1935)
Bach composed more than 200 cantatas, mainly for the church community in Leipzig where, in his role as Cantor, he was obliged to write one each week. Settings for voice and instruments of texts from the Bible or from pietist poetry, the works are profoundly dramatic as well as spiritual. This dramatic quality has inspired Katie Mitchell, the British director who has already staged the St Matthew Passion, and the conductor Raphaël Pichon, both fervent admirers of Bach. Together they explore the depths of these cantatas in order to celebrate their theatricality and living energy balanced against the omnipresence of death.
Distribution
Conductor Raphaël Pichon
Stage design Katie Mitchell
Costume design and stage design Vicki Mortimer
Light design James Farncombe
Father, bass-baritone Frode Olsen
Soprano Aoife Miskelly
Mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux
Tenor Rupert Charlesworth
Bass Andri Björn Robertsson
Orchestra Instrumentalists of the Académie du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
Co-production
A co-production of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, the Dutch National Opera and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation with the support of enoa and the Culture Programme of the European Union.
Distribution
Conductor Raphaël Pichon
Stage design Katie Mitchell
Costume design and stage design Vicki Mortimer
Light design James Farncombe
Father, bass-baritone Frode Olsen
Soprano Aoife Miskelly
Mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux
Tenor Rupert Charlesworth
Bass Andri Björn Robertsson
Orchestra Instrumentalists of the Académie du Festival d'Aix-en-Provence