Olasz Ági, Csorba Károly, Bakki Zsolt és Eifert János felvételei

Műcsarnok Színtér

Mérgezett almák | Sissi és a Schratt | Elektroakusztikus opera dell’ arte
Zeneszerző: Baráth P. Bálint
Sissi: Dobi-Kiss Veronika operaénekes és Tunyogi Henriett táncművész, koreográfus (Budapest–London)
A Schratt: Carmen Vasile operaénekes, egyetemi tanár (Kolozsvár–Nagyvárad) és Lőrinc Katalin táncművész, egyetemi tanár
Grafika: Rizmayer Péter
Jelmez: Juhász Zsuzsa
Hangtechnika: Andorfer Gyula
Bán Ildikó képzetTtársítás szabad társulása

Képek között. Képek között élnek, s létezésük is ilyen: úgy szólnak, úgy mozdulnak, hogy tudják, kép lesz belőlük, képpé válnak. A fenséges, aki mindig önmagával azonos: az uralkodónő. Az érzéki, aki bármely pillanatban a fenségessel vagy az alantassal azonosul: a színésznő. Manipulált, uralt jelrendszerek. Precíz lépések, ahol a színlelés is tudatosan kiszámolt lépésekben formálódik igaz pillantásokká. Fajansz figurák. Fájdalmak, mint belső vérzések. Szigetelt drótokon láthatatlan értekezések. Hangjuk és mozgásuk megkomponált, készen a véglegességre. Abban a kitüntetett, utolsó pillanatban, mielőtt a világ felgyorsult volna. Tökéletesek, mint egy álom. Érzelmeiket a helyzet mérgezi. A férfi – egy helyzet – által tükörállapotban élnek, bár semmiben nem hasonlítanak.

“This concert is exceptional in many respects. Apart from presenting the relationship of Sissi, Katharina Schratt and Franz Joseph in a new context, the joint production has created a new genre that we have termed opera dell’arte. We originate the genre from commedia dell’arte on account of their many similarities; however, opera dell’arte is basically different. It does not tell round stories, but rather, we create associations to various narrative developments and present strings of situations. Commedia dell’arte relies on acting, in contrast with opera dell’arte, which depends on the joint work of the musicians and dancers, is mostly performed without words and uses musical gestures and movements to communicate with the audiences. Performances involve electronic music, an integral part of the presented motifs. The players have defined characters, which might, however, “overlap” and any single character might have two “solutions”. The play has a framework and pillars, but improvised reactions characterise the space between those pillars. One might call this extended chamber music, on account of the fact that we develop the sketch of the narrative together, which will take its final form on the stage and its success will depend on the collective interplay of the participants.

The characters of the performance include Franz Joseph, his wife Sissi and lover Katharina Schratt. The musical and dramatic process is the sum of imaginary situations in which Sissi and Schratt are played by a singer and a dancer each. The singers represent the part of the women’s personality that is open to the outside world, while the dancers illustrate the way they would liked to have turned out, overcoming social conventions and escaping from the famously strict relations of the House of Habsburg. We therefore see the parallel realisation of two layers, each reflecting on the other. The layer of Franz Joseph, represented by electronic sounds, is a kind of force field serving to fill the void between the two ladies, and also to show an imprint of the emotions of the two women, encapsulated in one person (being, as he was, influenced by the two different emotional worlds).
In the musical introduction I use a so-called virtual instrument (a programmed software instrument) whose tonal system is based on an auditory illusion called Shepard tone. Alternating the starting note of superimposed sine waves creates a scale that ascends or descends in pitch, but which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower. I shall use another version of the scale, the Shepard-Risset glissando (where the tones glide continuously yet also continuously return to their starting note), and the resulting consonances to demonstrate the sum of the characters’ emotions (by means of chords), their interactions (the endless return of the scale) and their changes (perpetual movement) that create new constellations.” (Baráth P. Bálint)

Translated by Bodóczky Miklós