STAGE & LIGHT DESIGN BY PETER MISSOTTEN

AVIS DE TEMPÈTE - Georges APERGHIS - Opéra de Lille 2004

Peter Missotten designed the stage and light for the world creation of the opera by Georges Aperghis at the Opera de Lille.

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Libretto Georges Aperghis and Peter Szendy
Music and direction Georges Aperghis Musical director Georges-Elie Octors
Images created by De Filmfabriek:
Kurt D’Haeseleer (video) and Peter Missotten (stage & Light design) Computer music Ircam-Centre Georges Pompidou
Computer music designer Sébastien Roux Assistant director Emilie Morin
with
Donatienne Michel-Dansac
Johanne Saunier
Lionel Peintre
Romain Bischoff
Ensemble Ictus, ensemble in residence at the Opéra de Lille


Commissioned by the Opéra de Lille and the Ministry of Culture
Production Opéra de Lille
Co-production Lille 2004, Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine, Ircam-Centre Georges Pompidou
Supported by the Fonds de Création Lyrique and Beaumarchais

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Working notes by Georges Aperghis - October 2003

"The control tower – a kind of lightning rod – will be in the middle of the stage, vertical, technical, emitting images, audible signals, inhabited by musicians as if they have sought refuge during the deluge.
The fragments of an enormous “bubble” like pieces of an egg shell will surround the action – screens on which images of the actors, musicians etc. will be projected but also images of the deformed “world”, transformed by music. The singers–actors, like virtual images, will perform ellipses around this central tower like planets around the sun, captured from time to time by hidden cameras. Storm in the minds, in the texts, in the music, between instruments / voices / electronic sounds that write and delete alternately like a huge respiration. Building – recounting then disrupting – erasing. Like a story being started over and over again.
The body of the spectacle damaged by internal disruptions. Moby Dick, King Lear, The Lightning-Rod Man are simply allegories of the mental storm that is tearing apart the text and the spectacle from the inside.
Immobile storms too. A kind of novelty of our century. Vertical storms – semi-calm – much more terrifying than thunder over the countryside.
Peter Szendy’s text "Le texte-Léviathan - Melville, la lecture et la prophétie" will run right through this opera, a kind of basso continuo, generating the possibility of lightning speeds, of digressions. The “Storm” too like an ultimate sweeping away of all customary practices – like the destruction of the established order, ebb and flow starting over and over again as the final words of Peter Szendy’s text puts it so well: “The text contains its promise of writing which in turn contains the text as a prophecy to be fulfilled. The writing is only prophetic in this recommencement when it truly commences. Reading will be like this too in the re-reading. There is nothing more to verify or predict. Everything has been, everything has taken place. And everything can be re-written or re-read, precisely because everything has already been produced. So there’s everything left to say. To tell. I’m listening to you, now it’s over to you.”


Opéra de Lille - CREATION - November 17th 2004
Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine - May 28th and 29th 2005
IRCAM - Festival Agora - Paris - June 2dn and 3rd 2005

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The registration - great sound quality, unfortunately, the image quality is really bad



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