WEDDING PREPARATIONS
type of work
Teatro Musical, Nueva ópera, ópera contemporanea, Concierto escénico
Colaboration
Marian Ciolfi Ruiz, Edgardo Mercado
year
2016
location
Usina del Arte, Agustín R. Caffarena, Buenos Aires, Argentina
link
Commissioned by the CETC for its 1st New Opera Festival, this profane cantata, composed by Oscar Strasnoy and based on Kafka’s diaries, is conceived in dialogue with Bach’s Wedding Cantata, “Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten”, BWV 202.
Different situations surrounding marriage are expressed through fragmented images that create a tension between the Kafkaesque—in the sense of a universe filled with anguish and oppression, riddled with incomprehensible, complicated, absurd, and strange situations—and a supposedly harmonious ideal introduced through Bach’s Baroque music.
Stage Direction: Marian Ciolfi Ruiz – Edgardo Mercado
Musical Direction: Annunziata Tomaro
Soprano: Chantal Santon Jeffery (France)
Countertenor: Daniel Gloger (Germany)
Dancer: Carla Di Grazia
Choreography: Edgardo Mercado
Costume Design: Magda Banach
Set Design: Alejandro Mateo
Lighting Design: Claudio Del Bianco – David Seldes
Lighting Assistant: Martín Fernández Paponi
Musicians:
Violins: Lucía Luque and Demir Lulja
Viola: Hilary Gamble
Cello: Marcos Vives
Double Bass: Mariano Slaby
Oboe: Michelle Wong
Flute: Gabriel Romero
Clarinet: Federico Landaburu
Percussion: Bruno Lo Bianco
Piano: Lucas Urdampilleta
Piano, Harpsichord, Celesta: Silvia Dabul
Production: Gabriel Noacco
CETC New Opera Festival (Centro de Experimentación del Teatro Colón)
Photography: Máximo Parpagnoli