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After the performances, discussion with the production team. Music: Lucia Ronchetti Text: Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, adapted by Tina Hartmann Staging: Michael von zur Mühlen Live Electronic Design: Carl Faia Set and Costume Design: Sebastian Hannak Musical Assistance: Alexander G. Adiarte Dramaturgy: Tina Hartmann With Daniel Gloger, Countertenor; Andreas Fischer, Bass; Luca Sanzó, Viola; Darius Paul-Knecht / David Dörner, Boy Soprano Oscar Wilde would have turned 150 this year. Yet neither his writings nor he himself have lost anything of their vitality or contemporary relevance. As the author of Salomé’s Tragedy in One Act (1893), this ostensibly “unmusical” writer has the distinction of having written one of, if not the paradigmatic libretto of the twentieth century. Astonishingly enough, however, Wilde never thought about having his work set to music. Instead he sought to lend the text an inherently musical quality. The characters repeat their lines like musical refrains or idées fixes, and the drama takes on the character of a ballad. Nearly a century after Strauss produced his monolithic setting of the work, contemporary composers are rediscovering Wilde’s story, which has acquired a mythlike presence in the wake of Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung. It is precisely the great variety of interpretations—between woman child and femme fatale, abused object and liberating stroke—that interested and inspired us. A close reading of Wilde’s text shows that it unpacks masculine notions of the nature of woman. We took the metaphor of Salomé literally. She is the moon goddess, the projection screen, in which all of these men contemplate or “mirror” themselves while at the same time remaining transfixed around its light like moths around a flame. The piece begins, but Salomé is not there. Three men and a boy wait for her. One of them seems to be able to fill the gap, at least temporarily. As in Plato’s allegory of the cave, the viola conjures up a “sound shadow” of the desired object. The projections of Salomé begin to develop a surreal life of their own. Yet the dance around the “sound shadow” turns into a deadly battle. Lucia Ronchetti’s composition for boy’s voice, countertenor, bass, viola, and live electronics seeks to capture all the story’s drama and many levels in its virtuoso treatment of the singing voice. Together with the Stuttgart vocal soloists Daniel Gloger and Andreas Fischer, Ronchetti develops an approach to the voice in which conventional dramatic and vocal roles cross and intersect, creating a striking effect in which new horizons are opened up. In December 2004 Last Desire had world premiere at the FNM. With the support of the firm Radium Lampenwerk Wippenfürth, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Stuttgart, and the Akademie Schloss Solitude. » LAST DESIRE Photos » LUCIA RONCHETTI Biography » LAST DESIRE Press Reviews » RADIUM LAMPENWERK Homepage » ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI CULTURA STUTTGART Homepage » AKADEMIE SCHLOSS SOLITUDE Homepage |
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