WINTERREISE TETRALOGY

 

 

Première Dates:

 NÉVÉ  (Part I) - 21 January 2010

FIRN & GLACIER (Parts II and III) - 17 February 2011

FULL TETRALOGY (including ZERO KELVIN - Part IV) -  31  January 2012

​

Music : Winterreise - Franz Schubert

 

Concept, choreography:  Samir Calixto 

Performance:  Samir Calixto, Isabelle Chaffaud, Denise Cecchi 

Piano: Rudolf Jansen 

Tenor: Eyjólfur Eyjólfsson 

Installation, Stage Design: Wilma Marijnissen

Costumes: Jookje Zweedijk

Light Design: Bas Vissers 

Producer: Korzo Producties

 

* Perfomers on 2010/2011 versions: Harm Huson & Valérie Guillorit  (Voice); Henk Mak van Dijk & Hans Schellevis (Piano)

 

​

Programme Text by Samir Calixto

 

The Winterreise Tetralogy is fruit of a long term investigation on Franz Schubert’s masterpiece. It is conceived as a four parts piece combining movement, art installation and live music on equal levels.

Originally, Winterreise depicts the journey of a disillusioned man who, out of despair, decides to wander through the harshest winter landscapes.  It was written by a poet capable to fit strong emotional content inside apparently simple poetry (Wilhelm Müller), and a composer whom almost chronic sadness, linked to poor health, would kill so prematurely at the age of 31. They were sons of Romanticism, a period also marked by the rise of existentialism in philosophy. This existentialist movement referred to man’s confusion and disorientation in the face of an absurd and meaningless world. It was also a reaction against the augmented pressure produced by social, religious and moral forces which placed the individual inside a pitfall of agonizing dualities, in an almost annihilating antagonism between subjectivity and objectivity. 

Oddly enough (or not), little has changed concerning the human struggle with existence since then; the same sense of disconnection and incompletion still haunts contemporary man’s life, and often a “symbolic winter’ is staged within him. He pictures himself as if he was frozen inside forged concepts and patterns, while bombarded by instant promises of happiness. Only a profound journey across emotional, physical and mental landscapes can bring transformation. Yet, as the whole Schubert cycle depicts, it is a quest full of obstacles, painful confrontations and uncertainties. And that is at the very core of this performance. 

In this project, man is not seen as an object maneuvered by fate or nature but mainly as the one responsible for triggering significant changes about himself and everything around him. Internal transformations reflect on the outside world, as well as natural events might have an impact on the course of someone’s life. This relation of co-dependence is circular; mutual and dubious; obvious yet obscure. This idea is one of the bulldozers behind this Winterreise.

However, opposing to the misinformed idea that the Winterreise is a pessimistic expression of an agonizing genius, the performance also tries to bring to light some aspects that very few dares to foresee through dark waters and during dark times: the ability to abandon, to learn, to survive and to transform. In times when melancholy, simplicity and beauty (not necessarily aesthetics) sound almost like obscenities, I invite those interested to discover what lies beyond the sad and apparent gruesome notes of Schubert.