An Evening of Music, Movement, and Drama
with music by Reiko Füting & Lewis Nielson
10/17 + 10/18 @ 7:30pm
Il Romanticismo di Lucrezia e Cesare by Lewis Nielson Music theatre and dance for soprano and contrabass And Kaspar / Begin! by Reiko Füting Workshop for Images, Actions, Sounds, and Words.
Receptions will be held after each program
ABOUT THE PROGRAM:
Il Romanticismo di Lucrezia e Cesare by Lewis Nielson
Music theatre and dance for soprano and contrabass
The work focuses loosely on the lives of the infamous, late 15th-early 16th century sister and brother, Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, daugther and son of Pope Alexander VI. Infamous? Certainly Cesare deserves this label; but Lucrezia as a devoted daughter, beloved wife, cherished mother, and trusted administrator of lands in several duchies in Italy. She was thrown into the trash can of history along with her relations with no regard for fact. Not so different from the plight of women in significant positions today: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The texts for Il Romanticismo are drawn from poets from the time period of Lucrezia Borgia whom she knew and supported, including Ludovico Ariosto, Pietro Bemba, and Giovanni Guidiccioni, as well as some poets of her more distant past and luminaries of her own period, such as Lorenzo de’Medici, Michelangelo Buonarroti, and Lucrezia herself.
Kaspar / Begin! by Reiko Füting
Workshop for Images, Actions, Sounds, and Words
“Kaspar” is based on the story of Kaspar Hauser (1812–1833), who appeared in Nuremberg at the age of sixteen claiming to have been raised in near-total isolation. His brief life ended under violent and still-unresolved circumstances. His story has inspired writers (Paul Verlaine, Georg Trakl, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Jakob Wassermann, Peter Handke, Paul Auster), filmmakers (Werner Herzog), and philosophers (Martin Heidegger).
“Begin!” primarily consist of quotations from Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition. It explores the intersections between musical and theatrical performance, music and language, and language as sound and sense.