Músic:Joan Albert Amargós
Idea and libretto: Toni Rumbau
Directed by Luca Valentino
Conducted by Joan Albert Amargós
Set design and construction: José Menchero
Magic consultant: Mag Lari
lighting: Quico Gutiérrez
Performed by Grupo Instrumental Barcelona 216
Internacional Relations: Dietrich Grosse
Executif production: Lola Davó - BITÓ
Coproduction: La Fanfarra / Grup Instrumental Barcelona 216/Festival d'Òpera
de Butxaca i Noves Creacions
Production: LA FANFARRA
Management:
Dietrich Grosse
Opera,
magic, cabaret… A lucky audience member presides over this Tableau of Death in
which Lilí and Danté, the two presenters, are also the gods Thot and Anubis.
They lead the living-recently departed down a route of continual transformations
and surprises until he finally verifies - in the ambiguous, double and
contradictory atmosphere of a world made of images and shadows - that we are, at
one and the same time, both alive and dead.
The
powerful and expressive music of Amargós, whose roots are in both popular and
“classical” music, unfolds with surprising effects of rhythm and colour, in a
show where stage magic, impregnated with tragedy and vitality, becomes highly
poetic.
AN OPERA ABOUT LIFE
AND DEATH
SALON OF ANUBISis an
opera that works on two levels and which, in the guise of a cabaret and
magic-show, confronts the central character and the audience with the theme of
death.
A
lucky audience member presides over this Tableau of Death in which Lilí and
Danté, the two cabaret presenters, are also the gods Thot and Anubis. They lead
the living-recently departed down a route of continual transformations in which,
on each occasion, he becomes smaller, in a comic and dramatic journey to the
depths of his being until his personality is reduced to nothing but a small,
squeaking figure. The fourth character is Rosa, the Guest’s wife, who emerges
directly from the dramatic situation and whose life will also suffer a radical
transformation.
The powerful and expressive music of Amargós unfolds with surprising effects of
rhythm and colour, in a show where stage magic, impregnated with tragedy and
vitality, becomes highly poetic.
By means of the artífice of
the operatic genre, of magic and cabaret, The Salon of Anubis presents a
space which is double, where life and death observe and reflect each other in a
game of simulations, transforming reflections and in the characters’ growing
self knowledge. In this environment of ambiguous and deceptive dualities, to be
born and to die would be the two faces of a single coin.
The Salon of Anubis
presents the public with an eternal theme, intensified in our era: the radical
uncertainty about what is going to happen in the next few weeks, days, hours,
minutes… Will we be in the same job? Will we still be living in the same place?
Will we be alive in two months time, a week, or two days? Biological life is
extended, but securities shatter at every turn. And death hovers, a hidden and
incomprehensible threat.
The
result is a show with a dizzying theatrical rhythm which, through a succession
of powerful and surprising images, alternates disbelief with self-knowledge,
drama with irony and interior reflexion with play, in an equilibrium which
reflects life itself.
Located in this space that is, at the same time, both real and symbolic, the
notes, images and words impel the breath-takingly energetic music through the
show’s different registers: through magic tricks, absurd and impossible
situations, through dramatic meetings and terrible feelings of loss. And thus
the music accompanies the central character on a magic journey, (magic in the
literal sense of the word), from the playful tunes of the beginning to
tonalities that are increasingly intense and dramatic.
Toni Rumbau, Joan
Albert Amargós and Luca Valentino
Assistant
director: Glòria Balanyà Catalan version: Toni Rumbau, Joan Albert Amargós and Marc Rosich Set design and construction: José Menchero
Costume design and confection: Raquel Bonillo
Magic consultant: Mag Lari
Lighting design: Quico Gutiérrez
Video: Marta Hincapié
Video editor: Anastasi Rinos
Stage manager: Germano Bozzelli
Lighting technician: Silvia Kuchinow
Stage hand: Ramón Beneito
Photographs: David Ruano
Graphic design: Mariano Rolando
International Relations: Dietrich Grosse
Production: LA FANFARRA S.L.
English translation: Rebecca Simpson
German translation:
Printer: Argra
Production assistant, drawings and rehearsal photographs: Jorge Raedó
Executive production: Lola Davó – BITÓ
Commissioned and co-produced by the Festival of New and Pocket Opera (CITART)
With the support of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya
Collaborating institutions: Institut Ramón Llull, Teatre Nacional de Catalunya,
Temporada Alta and the Bogliasco Foundation
First
performances October 2007:
Dress
rehearsal with audience: 29th September Auditorio de Cornellá, Barcelona
Première:
2nd October Theater am Stadtgarten, Winterthur,
Switzerland
14th October: Teatro de Salt,
Gerona, Temporada Alta
18th and
20th October: Staatstheater Darmstadt, Germany
24th to 28th October:
Sala Pequeña, Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, Barcelona
