Attention, to attend this show designed around the music of Beethoven, take your smartphone and make sure you have the battery and enough internal memory to download a specific app. For its creation in the form of advocacy for ecology, the Fura dels Baus integrated a multimedia and interactive dimension into its staging. So, as the performance progresses, quotes will appear on your screen, like these words from Eunice Newton Foote, "The increase in CO2 will cause global warming." that he was already writing in 1856. At other times, the flashlight of your device will light up, the vibrator will be excited ... On stage, the Catalan troop walks a kind of totem in the shape of a baobab, and strives to illustrate music with a desperate first degree. Fortunately, some very dreamlike images projected on the walls and the ceiling of the room bring a little height to the whole.
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To appreciate Beethoven however, you will only need both ears. On stage, the Insula Orchestra performs under the baton of Laurence Equilbey a choice of compositions by the master of Vienna: excerpt from the Seventh Symphony, The Creatures of Prometheus ... Before concluding on the Pastoral given in its entirety. A set of pieces played with finesse and inspiration. The conductor stays the course even when her singers are pulled into the air: we wonder how they manage to remain impassive and continue to sing without a hitch! Finally, the program is original in that it incorporates music from elsewhere, such as these traditional Ukrainian songs. In short, this slightly disjointed ensemble can be a good start for beginners, if Beethoven's music ever needed visual accompaniment to get started. At the risk, of course, of depriving them of their own imagination.
After its creation at the Grand Théâtre de Provence d'Aix, this Pastoral for the planet moved to the musical Seine on February 26 and 27.