A musical theater performance inspired by the life and work of Sergei Diaghilev.

• Concept: Luigi De Angelis and Michael Rauter
• Direction, Lighting, Set Design: Luigi De Angelis
• Musical Direction: Michael Rauter
• Music, Performance: Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop
• Performer: Marco Cavalcoli
• Sound Design: Johann Günther and Hubert Westkemper
• Costumes: Chiara Lagani
• Skin Painting: Nicola Fagnani
• Lighting and Set Assistant: Giovanni Cavalcoli
• Dramaturgical Collaboration: Boram Lie
• Music: Michael Rauter – Serge (2018), inspired by and based on excerpts of Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis Et Chloé, Erik Satie’s Parade
  Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop: Paul Valikoski (violin), Mari Sawada (violin), Ildiko Ludwig (viola), Yodfat Miron (viola), Michael Rauter (cello), Ulrike Ruf (cello), Clara Gervais (double bass)
• Production Direction: Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop (Michael Hohendorf, Volker Hormann, Lisa Mitschke, Anne Odoj, Carla van der Minde)
• Photography: ©Katya Abramkina

Year : 2018

Service : Music Theater, Set and lighting design

Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, also known as Bricktop, was an American dancer, jazz singer, vaudeville artist, and the owner of the famous concert venue Chez Bricktop in Paris. The venue became a landmark for both French and African American artists who had moved to Paris to escape the systemic racism and constant denial of humanity they faced in America. Through the story of Bricktop and her interviews, soprano Claron McFadden and pianist Claire Chevallier recreate the vibrant atmosphere of the interwar period in Paris, when jazz arrived from America and began to merge with the French musical repertoire. Director Luigi De Angelis conceived Chez Bricktop as a live radio program, evoking the ambiance of a club from a hundred years ago, with a live audience and special guests in real time.

“When Claron McFadden asked me to collaborate on Chez Bricktop, I was immediately struck by the strong connection she had developed with Claire Chevallier. It was a brilliant web of links between the past and the present, an incredible journey through their sensitivity and the stories of today that resonate and challenge the shadows and ghosts of the past. They asked me to recreate the atmosphere of Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith’s club, leaving open windows through which they could speak about their own journey and intimate ‘renaissance,’ and how they were approaching the history of jazz—the music that had so strongly influenced their artistic path.
I conceived Chez Bricktop as a live radio program, with Claron McFadden as the host, in dialogue with Claire at the piano, creating an overlap between the atmosphere of a club from 100 years ago and a modern radio studio, where a live broadcast unfolds with an audience all around, live music, guests, etc. The dramaturgy of a musical broadcast offers a lot of freedom and the possibility to move quickly from the present to the past in a kaleidoscopic and engaging journey.” (Luigi De Angelis)

DEBUT
March 9, 2024, 15:00 and 20:20 – Klarafestival, Bozar, Brussels (BE)
May 23, 2024, 20:00 – Toneelhuis, Bourlaschouwburg, Antwerp (BE)

SERGE is a musical theater performance inspired by the life and work of Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev was a famous Russian impresario, a cosmopolitan and visionary artist who revolutionized the forms of dance, music, and the performing arts. In 1909, Diaghilev founded the Ballets Russes, which toured the world before settling in Paris after the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Ballets Russes would forever change the landscape of performance as it was known at the time. They became one of the most influential ballet companies of the 20th century, renowned for their groundbreaking artistic collaborations between choreographers, composers, artists, and designers: including Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Léon Bakst, Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, and George Balanchine.

Diaghilev had the power to captivate entire audiences, creating a new taste and aesthetic wherever he went. His seductive skill was demonstrated by the profound influence his work had on European stage art and the hedonistic and aesthetic sensitivities that arose from the new public consciousness. In the connections he created within the art world, Diaghilev was like a powerful wind, a cyclone capable of gathering and scattering the energy it generated: his vision was that different art forms could share the same stage, which led him to involve iconic composers and painters in his productions.

The serpent symbolizes seduction, ambiguity, and creativity. Like any symbol, it can be very versatile, representing the masculine, the feminine, or self-generation. To achieve its goal, the serpent never moves in a straight line but instead constantly shifts perspectives. If we could sketch a diagram of Diaghilev’s life and the connections he created, it would resemble an infinite spiral, like the skeleton of a serpent.

SERGE is a journey into the universe of Diaghilev’s work. The serpent embodies the spirit and essence of his life’s arc.

The etymology of the word “seduction” comes from the Latin sed-ducere, meaning “to lead elsewhere,” but also “to mislead” or “deceive.” The same applies in German with the word Ver-führung. When we are seduced, we are captured, taken elsewhere, and grabbed by a force to which we cannot resist. Seduction is the subversion of an order. We are suddenly lured into a new exotic universe, with all the positive and negative facets we must relate to. We lose awareness of our limits and immerse ourselves in darkness… The etymology of the word “sedition” (insurrection) is also linked to seduction: it comes from the Latin sed-ire, meaning “to go in a different direction.” For the ancient Greeks, seduction was always a divine action. During seduction, we are passive, governed by passion and an inner daemon. In a world where Eros is giving way to the perpetual consumption of objects and the identical, SERGE seeks to be a final call to the special energies of music and theater, evoked by the remnants of Diaghilev’s universe.

Starting from transcriptions of Nijinsky’s choreographic scores and his annotations on Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, the musicians of Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop embody the infinite spiral of movement of змея (the serpent, in Russian), which blooms from their skin and through their music. As they play, the musicians are seduced by that “fever,” and their gestures reverberate in the air like symptoms or memories, fragments of the Ballets Russes’ choreographies. Kaleidoskop, Luigi De Angelis, and actor Marco Cavalcoli create a “choreography of seduction,” bringing to life a thematic catalog of gestures based on the famous Ballets Russes’ choreographies, blending them with everyday gestures. Marco Cavalcoli embodies the figure of Sergei Diaghilev: he is like a Pied Piper, his tuning of a grand piano symbolizing manipulation, his seductive poison that generates and manipulates the entire performance.

The musical concept is based on works commissioned for the Ballets Russes, now considered milestones. The central piece is a 70-minute version of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Focused around the sounds of a piano tuning, the piece is a continuum where other music appears and disappears, shifting from light to dark. The recomposition of works such as Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, and Satie’s Parade plays with the audience’s perception, progressively eliminating individual parameters of these compositions: within SERGE, the archaic rhythm of one work interacts with the harmonic structures of another. Played by only seven musicians, the music – originally written for large symphonic orchestras – is transformed into an intimate chamber music experience, where the original sounds will resonate in the minds of the audience.

In this musical landscape, based on intricate rearrangements, fragments of the original compositions appear like ruins, evoking Diaghilev’s musical and sound world. The work, based on well-known pieces, becomes a new composition that contains the musical DNA of the Ballets Russes.

PAST DATES

November 17-18, 2018, Berlin, Radialsystem V
November 20-21, 2018, Rome, Romaeuropa Festival, Auditorium Parco della Musica