3Abschied

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jérôme Bel

3Abschied

"Only the last part of our “Song of the Earth” remains, the Abschied, the Farewell. This long, mysterious and gripping song - its complexity, which is not only musical but also semantic, is at stake in our attempt at performing it. The question that concerns us is how to do justice, choreographically and theatrically, to Mahler’s work. How to render in dance the wisdom and the quietude in the face of the ineluctable expressed in so masterly a fashion in Mahler’s composition? We will not be alone in seeking to answer this question. Our musician colleagues will be challenged to help us to give form to the disturbing feeling which seizes us when we hear the work. At the risk of failure or ridicule, we will throw ourselves into the music beyond our physical limits. We will strive, even at the risk of repeating ourselves (as the title indicates), to exhaust the work, which of course will resist us. But, like (the personage of) Mahler in the face of death, we are afraid of nothing."

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Jérôme Bel - Oct 2008

Concept
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Jérôme Bel

Music
Gustav Mahler Der Abschied, Das Lied von der Erde
(Arnold Schoenberg transcription)

Conductor
Georges-Elie Octors

Dance
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

Mezzo
Sara Fulgoni/Ursula Hesse von den Steinen

Musicians
Ictus

Piano
Jean-Luc Fafchamps

Violin
George Van Dam, Igor Semenoff

Viola 
Aurélie Entringer/Jeroen Robbrecht

Cello 
François Deppe/Geert De Bièvre

Contrabass 
Géry Cambier 

Flute  
Michael Schmid 

Oboe
Piet Van Bockstal/Kristien Ceuppens 

Clarinet
Dirk Descheemaeker 

Bassoon 
Dirk Noyen

Horn 
Kristina Mascher-Turner 

Timpano and percussion
Gerrit Nulens

Harmonium & celesta
Nico Declerck 

Production
Rosas

Coproduction
La Monnaie /De Munt (Brussels), Opéra de Lille, Sadler’s Wells (London), Theater an der Wien, Théâtre de la Ville avec le Festival d’Automne à Paris, Hellerau European Center for the Arts Dresden